Slashdot Mirror
Will the High-Tech Cities of the Future Be Utterly Lonely? (theweek.com)
adeelarshad82 writes from a report via The Week: The prospect of cities becoming sentient is "fast becoming the new reality," according to one paper. Take Tel Aviv for example, where everyone over the age of 13 can receive personalized data, such as traffic information, and can access free municipal Wi-Fi in 80 public zones. But in a future where robots sound and objects look increasingly sentient, we might be less inclined to seek out behaviors to abate our loneliness. Indeed, one recent study titled "Products as pals" finds that exposure to or interaction with anthropomorphic products -- which have characteristics of being alive -- partially satisfy our social needs, which means the human-like robots of tomorrow could kill our dwindling urge to be around other humans.
will make it more crowded. lonely is a choice. " i identify as lonely "
But they'll be smelly, with all the robots shitting in the streets.
They have their own worldview that doesn't have you at the center. They have their own competing needs and desires.
Give me a sufficiently complex AI that can be set to be as subservient as I like and I'd absolutely choose a factory build over Nature's own. And I can guarantee you I'm not alone in that.
AI (if we ever figure it out) is a serious danger to the continuation of our species, and not because it'll result in robots rising up against us. It will simply take our jobs and be our friend while we lay about not breeding new generations of ourselves.
At least in the USA the average person is shallow, self-centered and incredibly effectively stupid (they're not stupid in the usual sense, they just refuse to think - they treat thinking as a terrible burden to avoid whenever possible, not the beautiful privilege it really is). The trend among the Baby Boomers is to be helpless so they can demand unnecessary "help" from others. The trend among the Millenials is nearly complete apathy. The tendency of Americans in general is to have little or no patience and to regard any sort of courtesy, kindness, and respect as subservient acts of showing weakness. Exceptions are very rare.
In a different world I may have been a "people person". If the mainstream culture tended toward a more loving, compassionate, intelligent, enlightened, introspective, self-aware mentality, I likely would be. The reality is, I find myself in a culture where being self-centered is confused with being individualistic, and petty gratification is the major goal of people who appear completely stressed out and high strung just living their daily lives (of course they're stressed out - they're socializing the hard way).
I can't control these people. Even if I could, it would be wrong to try. They're not likely to ask me for advice on how to live, and I'm not sure I should answer a question like that even if they did. So I have a modest but beautiful home with a family of people who really love each other, don't manipulate one another, and aren't concerned about how to dominate others. I also have a relatively small group of cherished, beloved friends who are just like family members. I try my level best to avoid average people, and that's very hard. The ones who are not-so-average stand out (unless they're cowards) and are easy to identify, and those are a pleasure to speak to and be around. But really, I have no place in my life for most people - I wouldn't like them and they probably wouldn't like me.
Just as our system of law tries to carry out the will of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority, that principle can be more generalized to things outside of law. The opportunity to not be lonely is good and the majority of people probably want that. Yet the right of the minority who aren't starved for attention and don't enjoy shallow interaction with really transparent people is every bit as valid. TL;DR this sounds to me like a non-issue - most social interactions are neither edifying nor satisfying in any way, and I am much more concerned with the ability to *not* associate with people when I (or anyone else) don't want to.
In the long term, I don't think we need to worry too much about the human population losing the "urge" to socialize. I suspect such negative trait aspects to be bred out of the population gene pool in a few generations...
It may be a few lonely generations for a few folks though, but I'm sure computers will take care of that well enough to bridge the gap...
I'm in a suburb of San Diego. I have parks, recreation, low traffic (unless I want to get the Sorrento Valley from 7-9 or 4-6). I walk outside my door I have grass, landscaping, little traffic. I can ride my bike pretty much anywhere within my lung capacity.
I could move to downtown SD and walk to bars, restaurants, the harbor. Why would I want to? I outgrew bars 30 years ago. I can walk in parks here, drive to cheaper restaurants, and the harbor? Phfft. Kevin Faulconer seems hell bent on destroying Seaport Village, and they've already fucked up Anthony's beyond all repair.
Shouldn't that title be "Will the Human Inhabitants of High-Tech Cities..."? If the cities are sentient, they'll have other cities to talk to, so they're unlikely to be lonely.
https://vimeo.com/12915013
Don't date robots!!!
Because this is *exactly* the situation that will result in the revolution where-upon several advertising and marketing executives will be the first against the wall.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
"exposure to or interaction with anthropomorphic products -- which have characteristics of being alive -- partially satisfy our social needs"
Not mine. Sure there will be losers who prefer the zero conversation and 100% assured consent of sex robots, crazy people talking to stop signs, etc.
That doesn't make it something to strive for. In fact we should be looking to find ways to involve actual people rather than relying on 'more-human-than-human' AI.
By the way, that AI is achievable, but it's a LONG way off and there's an entire age of digital dystopia potentially between now and then.
Do you enjoy robocalls, as "lifelike" as they can make them? Would you prefer an ACTUAL robot write your parking tickets?
Didn't think so.
The AI will help us cure aging, so death will only be the result of accidents, murder, or suicide. The need for breeding will be greatly diminished.
And even apart from that, the ones who give a shit about the continuation of our species will find motivation to breed with one another, even if they aren't using each other to fulfill their companionate needs.
Or we might just practice in-vitro fertilization, with ziploc bags to grow the fetus in (as per a recent story posted right here on slashdot). The AI caretakers can raise the kids.
Or maybe our species will just die.....no great loss, really. Any species that can't figure out how to survive technological maturity, doesn't deserve to survive.
I've already replaced most the people I know with very small shell scripts which I then deleted!
However, the bond between me and my mailman is something that can never be broken. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
You can be surrounded by people and be lonely. You can be alone and not lonely. You know what kills the urge to be around people? People. What sparks the desire to be around people? People. Go ahead and keep blaming the machines.
We already have "products as pals". They're known as pets. See, for example, every fucking annoying video on Facebook, Youtube, etc. I for one look forward to something new with the robot pal videos.
I believe that in some of his stories, the lack of human contact went to extreme lengths. The wealthy and powerful outer systems had 20,000 robots per person. One story I recall had a woman, removing her gloves and, for the first time in her life, touching another human. I forgot how they managed to reproduce! However maybe they utilized technology for that (see below comment).
To echo a previous poster who says people are a pain, wasn't it Satre who said "Hell is other people"?
Although it seems obvious that there will be an evolutionary disadvantage to avoid socialization, it need not be that way if we can decouple reproduction from human contact completely. With IVF and soon artificial wombs, the government could harvest eggs and sperm (willingly?) to counter low birth rates.
http://www.theverge.com/2017/4...
Not that I'm promoting this, I like my partner very much thank you :)
we'll all have our personal sex bots.
Not the one with the spooky, wet implied-lesbian who was a puddle of alien liquid. The episode after that.
if you are talking about the robots. Yeah, they'll be lonely.
but if you're talking about the humans, they'll be busy banging their VR pals.
one recent study titled "Products as pals" finds that exposure to or interaction with anthropomorphic products -- which have characteristics of being alive -- partially satisfy our social needs, which means the human-like robots of tomorrow could kill our dwindling urge to be around other humans.
We all might be alone but we won't be lonely. ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The idea that we are going to have AI or Sentient non-humans is extremely unlikely. We can barely write normal programs that work well and consistently.
which means the human-like robots of tomorrow could kill our dwindling urge to be around other humans.
The "human-like robots of tomorrow" will not kill our urge to be around other humans. The dinosaur-like robots wearing tophats and monocles definitely will.
You can take your anti US bigotry and shove it up your marxist, hypocritical ass.
Same AC here. Yours is the type of response I anticipated - it's unfortunately rare that people surprise me, though my view of average people means that any surprise I do experience is likely to be a pleasant one.
You don't seem to appreciate the difference between "screw those assholes, they're underperforming just as one would expect!" versus "they have all the ingredients needed to reach great heights and accomplish wonderful things, such a shame so much of their energy is wasted on frivolous things which are beneath them". My sentiment is more like the latter, though of course like all summaries, it doesn't fully explain it.
It's odd to me, the inconsistency. A gay person trying to cope with a majority-straight world would receive tremendous sympathy and encouragement. A black person trying to cope with a majority-white world would be honored and esteemed. An individual who values loving, compassionate, real interaction trying to cope with a majority of phoney, empty, perfunctory, shallow and hollow "social interaction", now that person is treated with the customary hostility directed at all "heretics". Yet you don't see the contradiction there, do you? I cannot change my heart-felt desire for real, edifying, satisfying human interaction, no more than a black person could change their skin color, no more than a gay person could change to whom they are attracted.
No matter - the neurosis is yours to deal with. Small, insecure, hostile minds like yours are exactly what I was talking about. In day-to-day meatspace, that's what I want to be left alone by. As I said, I wouldn't like most people and most people (you being a nice defensive example) wouldn't like me. I mean, look at this thread - out of everything I wrote, all you can see is "us against them" - as though the emotional reaction goes, "he DARED to point out that mainstream culture has gone astray? That fucker! How DARE he not like everything we are! We've been ATTACKED by this TERRIBLE INSULT and must now RETALIATE!" What a shame. I can't have intellectual discourse with you.
No matter - the neurosis is yours to deal with. Small, insecure, hostile minds like yours are exactly what I was talking about.
Replying to myself to add something. Not for you - narrow minds generally cannot be reasoned with, they just get upset and more hostile when you try. Not for you, but for potential others.
I don't believe this is the normal natural condition of humanity. So if you ask "why that thing, why would THAT flourish and become so common?" it's like asking "qui bono?" So who does benefit? Well, small-minded people who are unaccustomed to reasoning and thinking and questioning do have one trait: they make good obedient workers who tend to not to get too "uppity". Philosophers and thinkers have this "annoying" tendency to examine things and find them wanting, and urge changes.
It's as though the robber-barons who financially and politically backed the institution (based on the Prussian model and the Hindu method of 2% Brahmins governing the other 98%) of modern public schooling wanted a workforce which was smart enough to perform complex tasks, but not so smart as to realize just how badly they're being exploited. Just to give one simple easy example: worker productivity has steadily risen since about the 1950s, yet wages (adjusted for inflation) have remained stagnant. I can easily see how various monied interests wouldn't want the average person to think too hard about that. They'd rather have average people worried about what the Kardashians are up to, or who won the Oscars, or what the latest sports scores are. Think about it.
There's nothing "conspiratorial" in assuming that wealthy powerful people would like to remain wealthy and powerful, and don't much care about what it takes to arrange that. Indeed the primary concern of a sociopath is "will it work, and will I get away with it?" Not "is this the right thing to do", and not "does this benefit people other than ourselves?"
Not the same AC as any of the previous posts, and not from the US, but still find it odd how you attribute near universal issues specifically to the US...
narrow minds generally cannot be reasoned with, they just get upset and more hostile when you try
And this is why you get short, insult laden replies. People see someone who is hypocritically complaining about others being unware and self-centered while dumping a bunch of belittling off-topic rants, and think the exact same, "This person can't be reasoned with." Your replies pretty much validate that, and double down on the hypocrisy by doing nearly all of the stuff you complain of others doing. Of course you shouldn't be surprised that pseudo-intellectual attention seeking gathers unintelligent attention.
Like a second brain in a Trump supporter, it would indeed be utterly lonely.
Humans have a social need to:
- fuck (dopamines)
- consume drugs (endorphins)
- imitate other humans
Until robots can provide sex and instant inebriation, we need another person to supply our dopamine and endorphin rush. If robots acted like monkeys (not apes), we would happily imitate them, causing the Idiocracy.
Yes, they may get satisfied, and the moment they have to interact with another human, everything goes down the drain.
Cause they no longer know how to talk like humans to each other.
Technology is allways being used the wrong way, human nature offcourse. The species uses everything for the wrong reasons first.
Dumb question. Humans are inherently social creatures. If nothing else people will want to venture out to get laid.
And yes, robots will never fill the whole (or near it imo) niche that other humans can. Let me know when you can knock up a robot and get a live birth human.
The hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy:
"Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!"
Part of the marketing campaign by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation for their "Genuine People Personalities" product line.
#DeleteFacebook
Turns out research shows that a non-trivial amount of happiness in your life is related to your commute. Long commutes, particularly by car, lead to less happiness.
Sometimes I feel
Like I don't have a partner
Sometimes I feel
Like my only friend
Is the city I live in
The city of angels
Lonely as I am
Together we cry
First, nothing technologically created is becoming "sentient" anytime soon, and certainly not "fast". At that position I stopped reading, because there was no chance left of anything worthwhile reading in the rest.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
robots of tomorrow could kill our dwindling urge to be around other humans.
I though geeky BO was the reason?
Welcome to Solaria, where everyone is alone with his robots at home, as the good Doctor told us decades ago.
Obligatory Blade Runner reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
There will be face-to-face social activities in the future, but probably not what we engage in now.
Semi-related: back when AOL was a big thing, they had home-town chat rooms. Whatever area you were in, that was the chat room you could get into. You couldn't get into the others, as the ONE you could get into was tied to your subscriber/account info. The weekend bar/club meetups were rather fun, and a lot more casual than a dating service.
Restricting it to only local people made it a lot more honest and civil, I think.
But then, , , the AOL hometown chat was a free feature of their internet service, so they had no reason to try to inflate the user numbers.
No other chat program bothers to do that; they allow people from across the country/world to spam and troll.
perhaps social will be for the sake of well being social. does it have to be because you want something.
ditto
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
It's not bigotry when they really are cunts.
rawa3jedha.com/
ksatransport.com
> The prospect of cities becoming sentient is "fast becoming the new reality," according to one paper. Take Tel Aviv for example, where everyone over the age of 13 can receive personalized data, such as traffic information, and can access free municipal Wi-Fi in 80 public zones. But in a future where robots sound and objects look increasingly sentient, we might be less inclined to seek out behaviors to abate our loneliness. Indeed, one recent study titled "Products as pals" finds that exposure to or interaction with anthropomorphic products -- which have characteristics of being alive -- partially satisfy our social needs, which means the human-like robots of tomorrow could kill our dwindling urge to be around other humans.
What this has to do with Tel-Aviv? Jews don't live in Japan at all, but about 15% of the pacific island country's young male population are already "hikikomori", that is people who live indoors 100% of the time, solely and only sharing space with technology, like the Vocaloid hologram "waifu" named Hatsune Miku.
Some call it 'kill', others call it 'cure'.
All rites reversed 2010
Take Tel Aviv for example, where everyone over the age of 13 can receive personalized data, such as traffic information, and can access free municipal Wi-Fi in 80 public zones. But in a future where robots sound and objects look increasingly sentient, we might be less inclined to seek out behaviors to abate our loneliness.
Yes, traffic information and free Wifi. The calm before the storm of city-wide sentience.
Lonely includes being sad that one has no friends or company.... they specifically sad that technology would partially satisfy our social needs. That means we aren't lonely, but just living a more solitary life.
Sounds fucking fantastic to me. My Echo has never made her problems mine to deal with.
The USA is an easy target. We have had dumbfucks in office who decided to go into multiple war theaters, then sit there fighting a battle of attrition to hold a "green zone" against attackers on all sides. Once out, as predicted, the most brutal, violent, and psychopathic group would seize power... and said prediction has come true.
The problem in the US is there are so many fractures. I have seen someone who supported Bernie kicked out of his sister's wedding for that fact. I've seen cars with Trump bumper stickers have their tires flattened, windshield and windowws decorated by a baseball bat, and a pile of shit left on the driver's seat.
The reason the US did well was because people were aligned. Now, people want their slice of the pie over another group, and don't see the real thieves making the pie smaller and smaller. Had we not had trade treaties like NAFTA or laws that either forced companies overseas (like the EPA steel mandates), or encouraged offshoring with tax breaks, the US would be a different country.
Now, while everyone is at each other's throats in the US, the foxes are back in the henhouse. Less corporate taxes, offset by more middle to low income taxes. A 25% pay cut for gold star wives' pensions (and these are people who lost family members in combat theaters.)
We also see a very mean streak as well. I see people want to privatise the entire US road system, because they don't like paying for a road that they don't use. The libertarian mentality is one of someone who has failed to grasp macroeconomics or civics. The libertarian ideal of a country that just has an army and no government infrastructure isn't a country that will mean much on the world stage. Somalia comes to mind.
I can see the European smugness, but they have their own issues. The Merkel doctrine of not doing anything about Syria until the refugee populations exploded, then taking on millions of radicalized combat age males has not done much for the stability of Germany and other EU nations.
Of course, both the EU and US are also at fault for security and the fact that relatively low tech attacks have affected elections so fundamentally. The "security has no ROI" mindset of private companies just allows almost any determined group free, unfettered access, especially companies where employee morale is in the shitter, due to H-1Bs, offshoring, or other items, so OPSEC is not a priority in any way, shape, or form.
All that is needed is to observe other people. The moment we don't need to stick together for survival reasons, society will fall apart, This is particularly evident here or any other right wing haven, where the "I've got mine, fuck the rest" people roam.
The thing is, with an increasing inequality in distribution of wealth, where the wealthier gets more wealthy and more alien to the poor, and vice versa, the robots will never be needed, because things will have turned into a shitshow long before that.
No "Caves of Steel" reference yet? (as I type this after searching all comments :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caves_of_Steel
DethLok
They might be as only the very rich will live in them.
The rest of us will live in the outskirts.
If I lived in the city, my commute would be 2 1/2 hours by bike.
Why would I live in a city?
From the summary: ""Products as pals" finds that exposure to or interaction with anthropomorphic products -- which have characteristics of being alive -- partially satisfy our social needs, which means the human-like robots of tomorrow could kill our dwindling urge to be around other humans."
Real engineers are devoid of social needs.
If the computer is going to know everything about the inhabitants anyway just make socialization a priority by finding the people who will make eachother the happiest and arranging serendipitous encounters by doing things like controlling traffic flow, class schedules, "random" malfunctions in cars leaving people stranded on the side of the road together, etc. If society is going to criminalize stalking there's a clear market gap available for computing to step in.
Please built as many robots as required so that other humans turned to them instead of me. Can't wait to be left alone. Peace at last...