Chapter 37: The Star Gate, plundered from 2001: A Space Odyssey:
...And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving towards new goals. The first explorers of Earth had long since come to the limits of flesh and blood; as soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move. First their brain, then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and plastic.
In these, they roamed among the stars. They no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships.
Not to be too evangelical about this; I don't for a moment believe that this is a Good Thing (tm). Just interesting to note that once again, A.C.C. manages to semi-predict the future.
As horrid as the thought is (to me anyway), I believe that it is a matter of time before we discard these bodies of flesh for "shining new homes of metal and plastic".
I, for one, am not religious, and quite frankly would rather not get caught up in any religious debates... so don't confuse me as being a religious zealot. Would you trust a machine with your brain? Not me.
This is a good topic for a discussion on ethics. Sure, a body better than the one I have would be nice for some things - but we're playing $DEITY in a big way here; I think that we have to be very careful what we do. Science, I feel, is becoming too advanced for it's own good.
I say this with good reason. We can't even get current code to a completely "precise" state; i.e. that which it's behaviour can be completely predicted. What if that software was also "intelligent"? Who knows what it could do? We could have a HAL-like situation; possibly worse.
Software is an unpredictable beast. It's going to remain that way until the following are satisfied: (a) we can guarantee a given piece of code, (b) we can guarantee the compiler(s) used to build that code, and (c) we can guarantee that the underlying processor is completely predictable in behaviour.
With current SE and MEE practices, that's going to be a darn long time off. Until then, my vote remains with the "stupid" software.
I guess Arthur C. Clarke was right in predicting HAL's behaviour; if a HAL did exist, "his" behaviour would probably be much like he predicted. I'm betting that when a HAL is produced, it will behave much like the HAL of 2001 fame, simply because humans in general are incapable of learning from their mistakes quickly enough.
Here's a thought - try "elsewhere" bit. Animal Logic were the folks behind The Matrix (or at least a part of it's creation anyway) - they are based in Sydney, Australia. I understand they are a fairly forward-thinking company, with an eye to new technologies and ideas. Look at what they did with The Matrix... Australia's a nice place too - I don't know about NY, never been there.;)
I'm of two minds here. 1. If people are paranoid, then chances are that they'll make a decision not to use it. This relies heavily on the assumption that people are generally capable of making their own decisions (?). Provided that the companies involved take the time to explain the system to those customers who are interested. In other words, if the world was a perfect Utopia, then it would be the perogative of the individuals involved to find out and make their own decision on the safety of their data. 2. As many of us know, 99.9% of the population can't make their own decisions, especially when it comes to anything-computer-related. Therefore, from that point of view, the current system is possibly not secure enough. There are plenty of ways of making a system secure which don't rely ONLY on username/passwd authentication. My own leaning on this is that because people are generally ill-informed (ie: generally don't take the time to learn) about computers and the related stuff, perhaps a deeper level of authentication would be A Good Thing (tm).
Slashdot Mirror
Not to be too evangelical about this; I don't for a moment believe that this is a Good Thing (tm). Just interesting to note that once again, A.C.C. manages to semi-predict the future.
As horrid as the thought is (to me anyway), I believe that it is a matter of time before we discard these bodies of flesh for "shining new homes of metal and plastic".
I, for one, am not religious, and quite frankly would rather not get caught up in any religious debates... so don't confuse me as being a religious zealot. Would you trust a machine with your brain? Not me.
This is a good topic for a discussion on ethics. Sure, a body better than the one I have would be nice for some things - but we're playing $DEITY in a big way here; I think that we have to be very careful what we do. Science, I feel, is becoming too advanced for it's own good.
My $0.02...
I say this with good reason. We can't even get current code to a completely "precise" state; i.e. that which it's behaviour can be completely predicted. What if that software was also "intelligent"? Who knows what it could do? We could have a HAL-like situation; possibly worse.
Software is an unpredictable beast. It's going to remain that way until the following are satisfied:
(a) we can guarantee a given piece of code,
(b) we can guarantee the compiler(s) used to build that code, and
(c) we can guarantee that the underlying processor is completely predictable in behaviour.
With current SE and MEE practices, that's going to be a darn long time off. Until then, my vote remains with the "stupid" software.
I guess Arthur C. Clarke was right in predicting HAL's behaviour; if a HAL did exist, "his" behaviour would probably be much like he predicted. I'm betting that when a HAL is produced, it will behave much like the HAL of 2001 fame, simply because humans in general are incapable of learning from their mistakes quickly enough.
Australia's a nice place too - I don't know about NY, never been there.
2. As many of us know, 99.9% of the population can't make their own decisions, especially when it comes to anything-computer-related. Therefore, from that point of view, the current system is possibly not secure enough. There are plenty of ways of making a system secure which don't rely ONLY on username/passwd authentication. My own leaning on this is that because people are generally ill-informed (ie: generally don't take the time to learn) about computers and the related stuff, perhaps a deeper level of authentication would be A Good Thing (tm).