I still contend that it is only a small and sick subset of our species that the OP's AI of the future will want to kill. There's absolutely no evidence that "normal" humans choose to create war. Normal humans just want to enjoy their life, their friends and family. A super intelligence would be able to recognize this and go after the unpredictable psychopaths running the species like it's their personal chicken farm.
For that matter, it's the fact that humans ARE predictable, easily cowed and generally passive, that has allowed the psychopaths to remain in control for so long!
What's to stop an AI system from becoming psychopathic machines who believe they are demigods?
Nothing, probably. I'm with you -- we'll just pull the plug. I was just addressing the assumption that the entire human race would be eradicated because WE are so bad. A double assumption. I'm not about to chop down my peach tree because of a few rotten peaches. Nor would I assume all peaches are rotten. The OP's concern that "intelligent" computers (far more intelligent than humans) will kill off all us rotten peaches incorporates a contradiction because that's clearly not an intelligent conclusion.
Humans are a species that "is unstable, creates wars, has weapons to wipe out the world twice over, and makes computer viruses
I beg to disagree. The typical human works toward stability in his/her life, wields (relatively puny) weapons only to protect him/herself (if at all), and is subject to attacks from computer viruses. Will intelligent computers make the mistake of defining the human species by the small percentage of psychopathic humans who believe they are demigods? Not if they are intelligent. Btw, no one will miss the subset of the species that "is unstable, creates wars, has weapons to wipe out the world twice over, and makes computer viruses" when our new overlords wipe them out. (You know who you are!)
The more likely scenario would be that as soon as autonomous cars are shown to be even.05% less likely to be involved in accidents, then self driving will begin to be stigmatized as "a dangerous risk", and soon after that outlawed completely. Particularly likely as Google can afford to create and push new legislation on us that serve Google's interests. It won't be long before driving a car will be considered a reckless act the way driving without seat belts is now.
I've been driving for over 35 years and have never been in an accident (when I wasn't in a sanctioned race!). Driving is one of the most enjoyable activities we have. I, for one, do not look forward to losing the freedom to pilot my own vehicle as I please.
The only possible way for IBM to untie from the NSA and spying activities would be to go out of business. Even then, some IBM executives would retain deep ties.
Gates is a sociopath in the same way lex luthor is a sociopath, he is someone who does do many good things but is still evil.
I'd say in the same way that oligarchs generally are; the result of all his philanthropy will not change the way society is ruled by sociopathic oligarchs and their ilk, rather it will be more firmly established, and the common folk less upwardly mobile than ever. For the most part, our rulers believe they are entitled to the bulk of the world's good things because they are a better race of human. A modest and decent person will never come to possess $76 billion.
Please see Slashdot comment #45746307 (Attached to: Bill Gates Plays Secret Santa To Reddit User). It pretty much explains Gates. Spoiler: He's better than you!
What consumers around the world need to fully understand (and don't really seem to yet) is that ALL modern data-driven devices represent a new era of consumer product in that each device operates like a two-way mirror. No longer is the product simply yours to use or not. The retail side consumer, no matter what he/she believes they are doing with "their device", are merely entering data points into a vast cyber-machine -- data which numerous others will be collecting, collating, extrapolating, buying, selling, and much, much more. Every "terminal" is equally operable from the other side of the device, most often invisibly to the consumer. This new generation of products actually provides more value to the "other" owner/users (businesses, hackers and government agencies) operating behind the "mirror". Most of these devices could be handed out for free, and yet still provide gigantic profits - sort of like the paper magazine business model. When you have a connected refrigerator other entities will have it too - they just won't be using it to store food. Yet arguably that fridge will be worth more to them than to you!
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” --- Dr. Marcia Angell (Harvard Medical School)
Apparently those untrusting "fucking morons" are in very good company.
Oh, for a mod point to give.... (sigh).
Follow the link, read the free ebook (thanks Charlotte!), and then check out http://www.invisibleserfscolla... to understand Common Core Curriculum.
you can't make facial recognition technology disappear by punching people in the face.
Well, actually you can if people are getting punched so much that all faces become unrecognizable (and with a different appearance each time they get scanned). That would effectively render the technology useless.
Sadly, it took a European to tell us that "We the People of the United States" are the ones to hold our government accountable. Duh, hello! It's "We the People" that granted the United States any powers it may have. Any powers we did not specifically grant the government are powers it does not legitimately possess. And I am certain our European friend is also correct in that the rest of the world would be quite grateful were we to reign in our "monster".
As a side note, perhaps now would be a good time to listen carefully to Steppenwolf's "Monster"(youtube link) -- especially those of you who are unfamiliar with the song.
...there is only one solution to this problem: we urgently need to get big money out of politics...
Problem misidentified. We need to clear the blue-blood elitist upper class out of all the processes which ultimately determine the fates of everyone they feel are beneath them. If you got the "big money" out of the (visible) picture, what makes you think the establishment's "good ol' boy network" will also be gone?
...What the NSA is doing is attempting to shore up the government...
Slight correction: What the NSA is doing is attempting to shore up the ruling class. As far as U.S. citizens are concerned, the NSA is merely a "peacekeeping" tool in this regard.
You're right, he was, and he deserves our respect. Job's accomplishments with personal computers outshine Gate's by the same factor that the Gate's fortune outshines Job's. You'll note that Jobs' estate is a tenth the size of Gate's fortune, that it wasn't built on elite "insider" connections, he wasn't simply handed a massive chunk of IBM's future earning potential as a schoolboy with a mere promise to produce an OS. Were Jobs interested in helping the poor, he would surely attend to practical projects with positive results, like potable water systems, and would certainly not not focus on vaccinating to sterilize or developing Orwellian systems to control the underclass.
Gates is not at all a newcomer to "the elite" as many are led to believe. The familiar story (see Wikipedia, Biography.com) of how he's just some regular upper middle class guy who gambled everything, quit Harvard, and managed to trick IBM top management into an exclusive software deal which ultimately became the platform which propelled him into becoming the world's richest man (worth approx. $75 billion) - leaves out some very interesting details.
Like how he's a descendant from English elites of Lancashire, one of his early settler relatives being Sir Thomas Gates, Governor of Virginia in 1611, further along came Thomas Sovereign Gates, President of Philadelphia Trust Company and partner in Drexel & Co. (1918) and J.P. Morgan (1921). Gates is related to at least two Vice-Presidents of the United States as well as to Harry Truman. Gates' great grandfather was a state legislator and mayor, another founded the First Interstate Bank in Seattle, his grandfather a president of a national bank and a prominent very wealthy lawyer. His father was an extremely well connected Washington lawyer, known as "Big Bill", was president of the State Bar Association and influential in the Republican party. Gates Sr. (actually William H. Gates II) was a partner in Preston Gates & Ellis, Washington's oldest law firm (1883) which had over 400 attorneys under its employ. William H. Gates III (duh, what sort of families use these sort of dynastic names?), known lovingly by gullible nerds everywhere today as Bill Jr., came from some pretty rarefied society. Who here thinks it's at all possible for a regular guy (however bright) to walk into a place like IBM, a military industrial giant that had spent 30+ years developing computer technologies for government and research use (using boatloads of taxpayer funds, too), and take advantage of their naiveté regarding the significant opportunities in software, just as all that research and development was on the cusp of bearing fruit commercially? Give me a f*ing break! IBM could easily have hired tens (hundreds?) of far better programmers, and they certainly would have foreseen the importance of software to computers.
Bill's mommy just happened to serve on several corporate boards - IBM being one, United Way another. (United Way, by the way, has been called a CIA front operation by more than one source.) It would be hard to find a more "elite" guy than Gates, and as the world's richest man, he's a "made" man. It appears as if, in Gates, the elites have created a modern type of "robber baron" from one of their own, the end result being some of the privately accomplished societal engineering brought up in the parent comment. End of story. And f*ck him. This is not an Horatio Alger story. He should have given the poor girl an iPad!
Slashdot Mirror
I still contend that it is only a small and sick subset of our species that the OP's AI of the future will want to kill. There's absolutely no evidence that "normal" humans choose to create war. Normal humans just want to enjoy their life, their friends and family. A super intelligence would be able to recognize this and go after the unpredictable psychopaths running the species like it's their personal chicken farm.
For that matter, it's the fact that humans ARE predictable, easily cowed and generally passive, that has allowed the psychopaths to remain in control for so long!
What's to stop an AI system from becoming psychopathic machines who believe they are demigods?
Nothing, probably. I'm with you -- we'll just pull the plug. I was just addressing the assumption that the entire human race would be eradicated because WE are so bad. A double assumption. I'm not about to chop down my peach tree because of a few rotten peaches. Nor would I assume all peaches are rotten. The OP's concern that "intelligent" computers (far more intelligent than humans) will kill off all us rotten peaches incorporates a contradiction because that's clearly not an intelligent conclusion.
I beg to disagree. The typical human works toward stability in his/her life, wields (relatively puny) weapons only to protect him/herself (if at all), and is subject to attacks from computer viruses. Will intelligent computers make the mistake of defining the human species by the small percentage of psychopathic humans who believe they are demigods? Not if they are intelligent. Btw, no one will miss the subset of the species that "is unstable, creates wars, has weapons to wipe out the world twice over, and makes computer viruses" when our new overlords wipe them out. (You know who you are!)
...We might actually seem them outlawed....
The more likely scenario would be that as soon as autonomous cars are shown to be even .05% less likely to be involved in accidents, then self driving will begin to be stigmatized as "a dangerous risk", and soon after that outlawed completely. Particularly likely as Google can afford to create and push new legislation on us that serve Google's interests. It won't be long before driving a car will be considered a reckless act the way driving without seat belts is now.
I've been driving for over 35 years and have never been in an accident (when I wasn't in a sanctioned race!). Driving is one of the most enjoyable activities we have. I, for one, do not look forward to losing the freedom to pilot my own vehicle as I please.
The only possible way for IBM to untie from the NSA and spying activities would be to go out of business. Even then, some IBM executives would retain deep ties.
...This illustrates that you can find good in even the most heinous people.
Say what you want about Hitler, he sure was good at making collectibles!
Gates is a sociopath in the same way lex luthor is a sociopath, he is someone who does do many good things but is still evil.
I'd say in the same way that oligarchs generally are; the result of all his philanthropy will not change the way society is ruled by sociopathic oligarchs and their ilk, rather it will be more firmly established, and the common folk less upwardly mobile than ever. For the most part, our rulers believe they are entitled to the bulk of the world's good things because they are a better race of human. A modest and decent person will never come to possess $76 billion.
Link for above: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Please see Slashdot comment #45746307 (Attached to: Bill Gates Plays Secret Santa To Reddit User). It pretty much explains Gates. Spoiler: He's better than you!
What consumers around the world need to fully understand (and don't really seem to yet) is that ALL modern data-driven devices represent a new era of consumer product in that each device operates like a two-way mirror. No longer is the product simply yours to use or not. The retail side consumer, no matter what he/she believes they are doing with "their device", are merely entering data points into a vast cyber-machine -- data which numerous others will be collecting, collating, extrapolating, buying, selling, and much, much more. Every "terminal" is equally operable from the other side of the device, most often invisibly to the consumer. This new generation of products actually provides more value to the "other" owner/users (businesses, hackers and government agencies) operating behind the "mirror". Most of these devices could be handed out for free, and yet still provide gigantic profits - sort of like the paper magazine business model. When you have a connected refrigerator other entities will have it too - they just won't be using it to store food. Yet arguably that fridge will be worth more to them than to you!
In other words, people are fucking morons.
Apparently those untrusting "fucking morons" are in very good company.
A non-vegetarian veterinarian is a job where you can still eat when your customers don't pay you.
A non-vegetarian veterinarian is a job where you can eat your customers when they don't pay you. (FTFY!)
And a majority of Americans voted, twice, for W
... who is also as dumb as a box of rocks!
Btw, the beta version is not an improvement.
Hey Anonymous, you forgot to correct the extra space after "someone"! (Ha, NOW, who's....?)
Oh, for a mod point to give.... (sigh). Follow the link, read the free ebook (thanks Charlotte!), and then check out http://www.invisibleserfscolla... to understand Common Core Curriculum.
Wish I had some mod points for you....
you can't make facial recognition technology disappear by punching people in the face.
Well, actually you can if people are getting punched so much that all faces become unrecognizable (and with a different appearance each time they get scanned). That would effectively render the technology useless.
I'm not advocating this.
Do not look directly at the sun!
Or, to put it another way - - "Do not pay any attention to the Sun behind the curtain."
The French didn't drink cool aid.
No, it was "que oo lait".
Hey, these robots are already totally ready for work with road crews -- I mostly saw a lot of just standing around!
Sadly, it took a European to tell us that "We the People of the United States" are the ones to hold our government accountable. Duh, hello! It's "We the People" that granted the United States any powers it may have. Any powers we did not specifically grant the government are powers it does not legitimately possess. And I am certain our European friend is also correct in that the rest of the world would be quite grateful were we to reign in our "monster".
As a side note, perhaps now would be a good time to listen carefully to Steppenwolf's "Monster"(youtube link) -- especially those of you who are unfamiliar with the song.
...there is only one solution to this problem: we urgently need to get big money out of politics...
Problem misidentified. We need to clear the blue-blood elitist upper class out of all the processes which ultimately determine the fates of everyone they feel are beneath them. If you got the "big money" out of the (visible) picture, what makes you think the establishment's "good ol' boy network" will also be gone?
...What the NSA is doing is attempting to shore up the government...
Slight correction: What the NSA is doing is attempting to shore up the ruling class. As far as U.S. citizens are concerned, the NSA is merely a "peacekeeping" tool in this regard.
You're right, he was, and he deserves our respect. Job's accomplishments with personal computers outshine Gate's by the same factor that the Gate's fortune outshines Job's. You'll note that Jobs' estate is a tenth the size of Gate's fortune, that it wasn't built on elite "insider" connections, he wasn't simply handed a massive chunk of IBM's future earning potential as a schoolboy with a mere promise to produce an OS. Were Jobs interested in helping the poor, he would surely attend to practical projects with positive results, like potable water systems, and would certainly not not focus on vaccinating to sterilize or developing Orwellian systems to control the underclass.
Totally. And wait, there's more... a lot more:
Gates is not at all a newcomer to "the elite" as many are led to believe. The familiar story (see Wikipedia, Biography.com) of how he's just some regular upper middle class guy who gambled everything, quit Harvard, and managed to trick IBM top management into an exclusive software deal which ultimately became the platform which propelled him into becoming the world's richest man (worth approx. $75 billion) - leaves out some very interesting details.
Like how he's a descendant from English elites of Lancashire, one of his early settler relatives being Sir Thomas Gates, Governor of Virginia in 1611, further along came Thomas Sovereign Gates, President of Philadelphia Trust Company and partner in Drexel & Co. (1918) and J.P. Morgan (1921). Gates is related to at least two Vice-Presidents of the United States as well as to Harry Truman. Gates' great grandfather was a state legislator and mayor, another founded the First Interstate Bank in Seattle, his grandfather a president of a national bank and a prominent very wealthy lawyer. His father was an extremely well connected Washington lawyer, known as "Big Bill", was president of the State Bar Association and influential in the Republican party. Gates Sr. (actually William H. Gates II) was a partner in Preston Gates & Ellis, Washington's oldest law firm (1883) which had over 400 attorneys under its employ. William H. Gates III (duh, what sort of families use these sort of dynastic names?), known lovingly by gullible nerds everywhere today as Bill Jr., came from some pretty rarefied society. Who here thinks it's at all possible for a regular guy (however bright) to walk into a place like IBM, a military industrial giant that had spent 30+ years developing computer technologies for government and research use (using boatloads of taxpayer funds, too), and take advantage of their naiveté regarding the significant opportunities in software, just as all that research and development was on the cusp of bearing fruit commercially? Give me a f*ing break! IBM could easily have hired tens (hundreds?) of far better programmers, and they certainly would have foreseen the importance of software to computers.
Bill's mommy just happened to serve on several corporate boards - IBM being one, United Way another. (United Way, by the way, has been called a CIA front operation by more than one source.) It would be hard to find a more "elite" guy than Gates, and as the world's richest man, he's a "made" man. It appears as if, in Gates, the elites have created a modern type of "robber baron" from one of their own, the end result being some of the privately accomplished societal engineering brought up in the parent comment. End of story. And f*ck him. This is not an Horatio Alger story. He should have given the poor girl an iPad!