I haven't read the book but my guess is that we send the aliens a Turning machine (which can be described completely with ones and zeros) and then give them some programs to feed into it.
The engines of globalism such as the United Nations and the WTO do not answer to the public. The people running global organization are not elected. This is the primary reason why people feel alienated from globalization. The United Nations and the WTO are acting like world government bodies--yet they have no mandate from the citizens of the world. The authority vested in these bodies come from power, not from any social contract. As long as this state of affairs continues there will be dissent--and there should be.
The Biggest Problem with Globalization
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Globalization
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· Score: 1
The biggest problem with globalization is the lack of representation given to the general populations of the nations of the world. The members of the United Nations are not elected. The people who run the WTO are not elected. We have decissions that effect us all being made by people who do not represent us. This is a problem.
There is a power vacuum in the world that has been filled by the United States. While the United States has done a relatively good job at this (for those who don't agree, please read your history books about other global powers) there is the problem of authority. The authority that the United States holds over the world comes from power. It does not come from the choices of the citizens of the world. This is a problem.
We may have to start looking at a global government with representatives voted for by all the citizens of the planet. Clearly, some structure is needed to give a voice to the people of the world. Without it, we must prepare for more frustation and violence.
I really enjoyed The Matrix but I was bothered by the "humans as batteries" concept. If I was a vast AI mind I would not want humans as batteries. For one thing, it wouldn't work. What I would use them for is as massive parallel processors to augment my own intelligence. After all, I have this seemless interface into their brains already. Imagine the computing power of 6 billion human beings plugged into my AI brain! Hahahahahahah! The POWER! The POWER! Hahahaha.
What I like about Farscape is that it is a retelling of the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs books, particularly the John Carter, Warlord of Mars series. These are pure escapist stories--literally. It is about escaping from familiar into the bizzare--into a land of danger, beautiful women, capture, rescue, and battles against evil. It is well done, has good eye candy, has a mishmash of appealing characters, and the plot twists are interesting enough to keep me involved. I like it.
Japan and the United States are at peace right now. Why? Because after the United States was attacked we inflicted such horrific destruction upon their country that they were compelled to surrender and abandon violence.
There are countries right now that finance and harbor terrorism. These countries consider terrorism to be a valid weapon of their arcenal. We must make it clear that it shall not be allowed for a country to finance and harbor terrorists. If they do we should declare war on them and bring them to the point where they can no longer support terrorist activities. The safety of our citizens is at stake.
Re:Anyone seen pianos catapulted?
on
Fling-A-Keg
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· Score: 1
That was the TV show Northern Exposure, where Chris wanted to fling a cow, but when he was told that it had already been done (In Monty Python and the Holy Grail) he decided to fling a piano instead.
Re:OK, Jon, you *obviously* didn't read Kurzwiel
on
A.I. and the Future
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· Score: 1
The main point of the book is that AI is really complex and shouldn't be approached by the faint hearted.
Hehe. Actually it's about a tortoise and a Greek guy who hang out with strange creatures and have far out adventures.
No, really, it's about the fundamental concepts of the computablility of intelligence. It has nice pictures too.
As machines become more intelligent, it is likely that such simple and direct laws will be difficult to program into them, if not impossible. For instance, if an intelligent system is a neural net that learns from it's environment, it will be problematic to have the Laws Module (LM) monitor the state of mind of the neural net to determine whether or not it is about to break the Laws. The LM will have to be "outside" the neural network of the AI (since neural networks are altered by the environment) but at the same time be able to interpret the network with sufficient understanding stop it from any transgression. In effect, the LM will have to be an extremely intelligent agent in its own right. It must understand the definition of "harm", which seems easy to us, but is extremely difficult to program. Then there are the ambiguities that crop up -- preventing the harm of one person causes another harm -- is some emotional harm more damaging than physical harm -- etc. It is questionable whether or not an intelligent entity that approaches human capabilities will be able to function 30 seconds with such simple rules constricting it in our extremely complex world without locking up.
Humans do not run by simple ethical rules. I suppose the most simply stated ethical rule is the Golden Rule -- "Do unto others as you would have them do to you." That won't work for AIs until they have emotions. It still doesn't work for most humans.
School is unpleasant. The reason it is unpleasant is that humans did not evolve to sit in a classroom for a significant portion of the day and read, write, and listen to lectures. They evolved to learn by following their parents hunt and gather and tan hides and chip rocks. However, we can't go back to the old hunter-gather society, there are simply too many people. (A nuclear war could bring us back to the good old days before schools, but I think that is an extreme option.) People now need to be able to endure the unpleasantness of being forced to learn things they don't want to learn in order to be successful. The purpose of school, remember, is not just to teach you information, but to teach you to behave in such a way that you will be useful to the corporations that you will work for. It's purpose is to force you to pay attention to things you don't want to pay attention to, because that is what you are going to do in the work world. If schools cater to a student's inablility to pay attention rather than try to force the student to pay attention, then the student will be useless to the corporate world. If US schools produce a majority of graduates who can't pay attention, no one will be able to run things effectively and we will have to hire people from other countries to do that work.
We live in a meritocracy. Unless schools train children to behave in a way they did not evolve to behave, the children will not have to skills to produce in our society. And let's face it, some people have to produce if we are to survive. Until AI and robotics gets to a point were we're all unemployed, school will be unpleasant.
This is a pet peeve of mine. Can't people be more descriptive of a product or technology than just calling it "New"? For instance, on a documentary about robotics they said that the current methodology for robotics, the one that calls for robots to learn on their own, is called "The New Robotics". That's its name. What the hell are they going to call it a hundred years from now? When you name something "New", are you telling the world that it won't be around a year from now? After all, it won't be new anymore in a year. Think of the Modernist art movement. It is a hundred years old now. Is it modern anymore? NO! It's OLD! It has a stupid name that doesn't accurately describe it!
If Harlan wants to verbally dismember someone or something he can do it. He seemed remarkably composed on this issue. Maybe he's mellowed.
I've always wished that there was a commentator who could write with equal skill about the Internet as Harlan did in his "Glass Teat" series about television. Imagine Harlan in Jon Katz's role! Harlan wipes away the bs that cover's most people's eyes with a skill that is a joy to read.
I'm afraid, however, that the traditional publishing system will soon be dead. Harlan is defending a dinosaur. A new system will arise--and it won't look like the thing that Harlan is trying to save with legal patches. I don't think writers in the future will make money off direct sales of their works. They will make money from the fame their works provide for them through speaking engagements, advertisements and movie rights.
I ran into this worm when a did a search on my own name for hahas. Imagine my surprise when I found several files out there that were named after me! I downloaded one and opened it with a hex viewer. After seeing the name "Mandragore" I was able to look it up and find out what was going on.
To see who has the worm do a search on Gnutella for a long nonsense string like "apuqoierk;afiekda". When you find an exact match you can see which nodes have been infected.
God made the universe yesterday. He just made our memories such that we believe we are older than just a day. Tomorrow he starts Armaggedon. See how much time he saved!
I think Slashdot should sponsor an award for people like Kent who code for the public good. Call it the Berners-Lee award or Stallman award. Then make a web site with the winners and their accomplishments, with links to their sites. Let's encourage our fellows to fight the good fight!
Tight, emotionally meaningful communities only form when a number of people need each other for survival. Without the pressure of death hanging over you, it's too easy to pick up and leave the community when things don't go your way. In those wonderful communities of yesteryear, people were nice to each other because they had to be. If you pissed off the butcher you wouldn't get any meat. If you pissed off the blacksmith he wouldn't change your horse's shoes. Deep, emotional bonds can't form between people if they know that they can jump over to the next community if things aren't going their way.
I would love to live in a nice, tight community where I felt wanted and loved. But let's face it, with virtual communities, if things start to get unpleasant, what's to stop me from checking out the next community to see if I can feel more wanted and loved there? A real community is a place where people stick together through both the bad and the good. But when things start getting bad, it's too easy to turn off the computer.
In the future, when the robots are doing all the real work, economic and social standing will be determined for most people by how well they play online games. Heck, some people can already earn a fair amount of money selling EverQuest, Diablo 2 and DragonRealms items. Online gaming will be the location for most of anything that can be called "society".
ARMED ROBOT REMOTELY CONTROLLED FROM THE INTERNET PASSWORD PROTECTED!!!
How many people will try to hack that one? Heck, one night after a few beers I'm tempted to try to hack it. Not that I would shoot anyone, of course. Maybe shoot near someone, just to see their expression. It would be even better if you could make it talk.
It is obvious that in the past, economics was not the only motivator. To say that any moral stance was simply a lie to hide the true, greedy motive is to show the extent to which cynicism pervades modern thought. Many have lived and fought for their ideology to the point of their economic ruin, not to mention the destruction of their lives and families lives. This still goes on today in many parts of the world where ideology is more important than life to some people.
The question is, if everyone is cynical, and no one is willing to die for a cause, is that better than living in a world of torn by ideological violence? T. S. Elliot wrote "The Hollow Men" describing idealess, selfish, superficial people, where the world ends with a whimper. Is that what we're headed for?
It is true that capitalism has been a significant force in all of recorded history. The difference today is that no one feels the need for moral justification of their actions anymore. It has all been layed bare--money is the prime motivator. In fact, for those who can barely remember the Cold War, it is difficult to conceive of anyone acting honestly for anything but selfish interests. It is hard to conceive of anyone who would actually fight and die for an Ideal in this modern, cynical world. We have people such as President Clinton who lied under oath, damaging the nation, rather than sacrifice his mere reputation by telling the truth. And to think that millions once actually sacrificed their lives for this country!
One might say that things are more honest now, we get to the truth of the matter by admitting that it's all for the buck. But . . . some people really are motivated by things other than personal gain. What our modern cynicism will do is make it more difficult to trust those who are truly sincere about their self-sacrifice, and make people who are willing to give of themselves freely more rare. As things are moving now, soon we shall live in a country where no one trusts the motives of anyone else, except if the motives are greedy ones. When this happens, we shall gladly put cameras everywhere, in all public places, to keep the enemy (everyone else) in line. We will gladly strengthen the laws because we believe everyone is out to get what we have. The two primary motivators in capitalism are greed and fear. Capitalism has won, which tells us alot about humanity.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't read the book but my guess is that we send the aliens a Turning machine (which can be described completely with ones and zeros) and then give them some programs to feed into it.
I heard someone was making a sequel called "The Revenge of Torgo". Does anyone know about this?
The engines of globalism such as the United Nations and the WTO do not answer to the public. The people running global organization are not elected. This is the primary reason why people feel alienated from globalization. The United Nations and the WTO are acting like world government bodies--yet they have no mandate from the citizens of the world. The authority vested in these bodies come from power, not from any social contract. As long as this state of affairs continues there will be dissent--and there should be.
The biggest problem with globalization is the lack of representation given to the general populations of the nations of the world. The members of the United Nations are not elected. The people who run the WTO are not elected. We have decissions that effect us all being made by people who do not represent us. This is a problem.
There is a power vacuum in the world that has been filled by the United States. While the United States has done a relatively good job at this (for those who don't agree, please read your history books about other global powers) there is the problem of authority. The authority that the United States holds over the world comes from power. It does not come from the choices of the citizens of the world. This is a problem.We may have to start looking at a global government with representatives voted for by all the citizens of the planet. Clearly, some structure is needed to give a voice to the people of the world. Without it, we must prepare for more frustation and violence.
I really enjoyed The Matrix but I was bothered by the "humans as batteries" concept. If I was a vast AI mind I would not want humans as batteries. For one thing, it wouldn't work. What I would use them for is as massive parallel processors to augment my own intelligence. After all, I have this seemless interface into their brains already. Imagine the computing power of 6 billion human beings plugged into my AI brain! Hahahahahahah! The POWER! The POWER! Hahahaha.
What I like about Farscape is that it is a retelling of the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs books, particularly the John Carter, Warlord of Mars series. These are pure escapist stories--literally. It is about escaping from familiar into the bizzare--into a land of danger, beautiful women, capture, rescue, and battles against evil. It is well done, has good eye candy, has a mishmash of appealing characters, and the plot twists are interesting enough to keep me involved. I like it.
Japan and the United States are at peace right now. Why? Because after the United States was attacked we inflicted such horrific destruction upon their country that they were compelled to surrender and abandon violence.
There are countries right now that finance and harbor terrorism. These countries consider terrorism to be a valid weapon of their arcenal. We must make it clear that it shall not be allowed for a country to finance and harbor terrorists. If they do we should declare war on them and bring them to the point where they can no longer support terrorist activities. The safety of our citizens is at stake.
That was the TV show Northern Exposure, where Chris wanted to fling a cow, but when he was told that it had already been done (In Monty Python and the Holy Grail) he decided to fling a piano instead.
The main point of the book is that AI is really complex and shouldn't be approached by the faint hearted.
Hehe. Actually it's about a tortoise and a Greek guy who hang out with strange creatures and have far out adventures.
No, really, it's about the fundamental concepts of the computablility of intelligence. It has nice pictures too.
As machines become more intelligent, it is likely that such simple and direct laws will be difficult to program into them, if not impossible. For instance, if an intelligent system is a neural net that learns from it's environment, it will be problematic to have the Laws Module (LM) monitor the state of mind of the neural net to determine whether or not it is about to break the Laws. The LM will have to be "outside" the neural network of the AI (since neural networks are altered by the environment) but at the same time be able to interpret the network with sufficient understanding stop it from any transgression. In effect, the LM will have to be an extremely intelligent agent in its own right. It must understand the definition of "harm", which seems easy to us, but is extremely difficult to program. Then there are the ambiguities that crop up -- preventing the harm of one person causes another harm -- is some emotional harm more damaging than physical harm -- etc. It is questionable whether or not an intelligent entity that approaches human capabilities will be able to function 30 seconds with such simple rules constricting it in our extremely complex world without locking up.
Humans do not run by simple ethical rules. I suppose the most simply stated ethical rule is the Golden Rule -- "Do unto others as you would have them do to you." That won't work for AIs until they have emotions. It still doesn't work for most humans.
School is unpleasant. The reason it is unpleasant is that humans did not evolve to sit in a classroom for a significant portion of the day and read, write, and listen to lectures. They evolved to learn by following their parents hunt and gather and tan hides and chip rocks. However, we can't go back to the old hunter-gather society, there are simply too many people. (A nuclear war could bring us back to the good old days before schools, but I think that is an extreme option.) People now need to be able to endure the unpleasantness of being forced to learn things they don't want to learn in order to be successful. The purpose of school, remember, is not just to teach you information, but to teach you to behave in such a way that you will be useful to the corporations that you will work for. It's purpose is to force you to pay attention to things you don't want to pay attention to, because that is what you are going to do in the work world. If schools cater to a student's inablility to pay attention rather than try to force the student to pay attention, then the student will be useless to the corporate world. If US schools produce a majority of graduates who can't pay attention, no one will be able to run things effectively and we will have to hire people from other countries to do that work.
We live in a meritocracy. Unless schools train children to behave in a way they did not evolve to behave, the children will not have to skills to produce in our society. And let's face it, some people have to produce if we are to survive. Until AI and robotics gets to a point were we're all unemployed, school will be unpleasant.
This is a pet peeve of mine. Can't people be more descriptive of a product or technology than just calling it "New"? For instance, on a documentary about robotics they said that the current methodology for robotics, the one that calls for robots to learn on their own, is called "The New Robotics". That's its name. What the hell are they going to call it a hundred years from now? When you name something "New", are you telling the world that it won't be around a year from now? After all, it won't be new anymore in a year. Think of the Modernist art movement. It is a hundred years old now. Is it modern anymore? NO! It's OLD! It has a stupid name that doesn't accurately describe it!
If Harlan wants to verbally dismember someone or something he can do it. He seemed remarkably composed on this issue. Maybe he's mellowed.
I've always wished that there was a commentator who could write with equal skill about the Internet as Harlan did in his "Glass Teat" series about television. Imagine Harlan in Jon Katz's role! Harlan wipes away the bs that cover's most people's eyes with a skill that is a joy to read.
I'm afraid, however, that the traditional publishing system will soon be dead. Harlan is defending a dinosaur. A new system will arise--and it won't look like the thing that Harlan is trying to save with legal patches. I don't think writers in the future will make money off direct sales of their works. They will make money from the fame their works provide for them through speaking engagements, advertisements and movie rights.
I ran into this worm when a did a search on my own name for hahas. Imagine my surprise when I found several files out there that were named after me! I downloaded one and opened it with a hex viewer. After seeing the name "Mandragore" I was able to look it up and find out what was going on.
To see who has the worm do a search on Gnutella for a long nonsense string like "apuqoierk;afiekda". When you find an exact match you can see which nodes have been infected.God made the universe yesterday. He just made our memories such that we believe we are older than just a day. Tomorrow he starts Armaggedon. See how much time he saved!
I think Slashdot should sponsor an award for people like Kent who code for the public good. Call it the Berners-Lee award or Stallman award. Then make a web site with the winners and their accomplishments, with links to their sites. Let's encourage our fellows to fight the good fight!
Please learn to read and comprehend what you read before criticizing others.
Tight, emotionally meaningful communities only form when a number of people need each other for survival. Without the pressure of death hanging over you, it's too easy to pick up and leave the community when things don't go your way. In those wonderful communities of yesteryear, people were nice to each other because they had to be. If you pissed off the butcher you wouldn't get any meat. If you pissed off the blacksmith he wouldn't change your horse's shoes. Deep, emotional bonds can't form between people if they know that they can jump over to the next community if things aren't going their way.
I would love to live in a nice, tight community where I felt wanted and loved. But let's face it, with virtual communities, if things start to get unpleasant, what's to stop me from checking out the next community to see if I can feel more wanted and loved there? A real community is a place where people stick together through both the bad and the good. But when things start getting bad, it's too easy to turn off the computer.
In the future, when the robots are doing all the real work, economic and social standing will be determined for most people by how well they play online games. Heck, some people can already earn a fair amount of money selling EverQuest, Diablo 2 and DragonRealms items. Online gaming will be the location for most of anything that can be called "society".
Rats! You beat me to it! (See below...)
But can it chew gum at the same time?
...and today's ingredient is. . . Europan Garganto Fish Eyes!
How many people will try to hack that one? Heck, one night after a few beers I'm tempted to try to hack it. Not that I would shoot anyone, of course. Maybe shoot near someone, just to see their expression. It would be even better if you could make it talk.
DESTROY ALL HUMANS. DESTROY ALL HUMANS.
The question is, if everyone is cynical, and no one is willing to die for a cause, is that better than living in a world of torn by ideological violence? T. S. Elliot wrote "The Hollow Men" describing idealess, selfish, superficial people, where the world ends with a whimper. Is that what we're headed for?
It is true that capitalism has been a significant force in all of recorded history. The difference today is that no one feels the need for moral justification of their actions anymore. It has all been layed bare--money is the prime motivator. In fact, for those who can barely remember the Cold War, it is difficult to conceive of anyone acting honestly for anything but selfish interests. It is hard to conceive of anyone who would actually fight and die for an Ideal in this modern, cynical world. We have people such as President Clinton who lied under oath, damaging the nation, rather than sacrifice his mere reputation by telling the truth. And to think that millions once actually sacrificed their lives for this country! One might say that things are more honest now, we get to the truth of the matter by admitting that it's all for the buck. But . . . some people really are motivated by things other than personal gain. What our modern cynicism will do is make it more difficult to trust those who are truly sincere about their self-sacrifice, and make people who are willing to give of themselves freely more rare. As things are moving now, soon we shall live in a country where no one trusts the motives of anyone else, except if the motives are greedy ones. When this happens, we shall gladly put cameras everywhere, in all public places, to keep the enemy (everyone else) in line. We will gladly strengthen the laws because we believe everyone is out to get what we have. The two primary motivators in capitalism are greed and fear. Capitalism has won, which tells us alot about humanity.