There's already chat bots that can fool people some of the time, progress, naturally would imply that improving. Those aren't really "AI", but certainly I expect chat bots that can pass a Turing Test within a decade (and that's not a conservative guess), we're already moderately close. Those aren't really AI though.
Real AI, I'm not saying it's coming any time soon, I really don't know. I'm just going to say it's inevitable if we don't wipe ourselves out first. We move closer every year and certainly we have attributes of AI even if we don't have AI yet.
I remember having conversations where they said there would never be an electric car on the street because it would be too expensive, and we it is scientifically impossible to have an electric motor perform like an engine. You'll never get enough range for the average consumer... etc,etc, etc.... we all know now that that isn't true, electric cars are growing quite rapidly. That was less than a decade ago. As recent as two years ago I remember people arguing that you will never have self driving cars, it was a fantasy technology no-one would want, Tesla is essentially doing that today too!
Then there is the whole "we'll never get much more data density than a CD in an optical drive because of laser wavelength".
So AI? Yes, it can be done, there is no reason we can't duplicate what is done with cells in our brain today with some form of computing (we already have more computing bandwidth than the brain, we just haven't figured out the abstract though). It probably won't be in 10 years... it might not be in my lifetime, or even my kids, but, unlike other technologies, it is obviously feasible, and there is an obvious desire for one. It will happen if we don't wipe ourselves out (or our technical ability out), it's when, not if.
If we continue improving our abilities, and don't wipe ourselves out, we will absolutely produce a superior-to-human AI one day. I couldn't give you a time frame, and neither can anyone else realistically, but one day it will happen. My lifetime? My kids lifetime? No-one really knows, it's inevitable one day assuming we don't wipe ourselves out some other way first.
Microsoft look enviously at Apple, who get to control and profit from their walled garden. Then they glance over at Android, and see Google has their play store (which, whereas it may not be a walled garden, has a fence around). Fire users most certainly have their own walled garden courtesy of Amazon.
Apple and Google are both benefiting from these "almost monopolies" they run controlling their users, skimming a bit off the top from everyone. No doubt, Microsoft sees that these are profitable ventures and they want the same control over what runs on Microsoft Windows. It's a little harder to do because there is a lot of legacy applications, and neither consumer, nor software producers want to give a little bit of each purchase to Microsoft. Microsoft are going to continue baby-stepping towards that goal though because they want the money, and their competitors are already doing that.
It will be a sad day when you have no option but to buy from the Microsoft store, but that day is coming.
It's cheaper and easier to get the materials we need on Earth rather than setting up expensive mining, refining, and assembly structures on the moon.
Not until or unless we are expecting heavy space traffic and exploration would it make sense to set up entire industries on the moon just to produce space craft. (and doubtless, we would need to send a great deal of material from Earth to the moon anyway)
...but this ain't gonna happen. America lacks the will to colonize the moon. Heck. America lacks the will to even visit the moon again.
There's a good reason for that. There is nothing worthwhile going to the moon for. There are other bodies in the solar system that have things worth going to, and they're not that much harder to get to. They're just further away and so too far for a quick rescue mission when things go wrong.
If we weren't a human risk-averse society we would never even bring the moon up in conversation as a place to place a base- we would be setting our eyes elsewhere further afield.
That silly border wall is going to cost $20billion. I, find it highly unlikely we can build a Space Elevator anywhere near $10billion for several generations at least.
Yeah but the curve of technology evolution has a greater slope than that of biological evolution. Soon we will have robots smarter than humans. Then Humans will go the way of horses. Civilization will live on in robotic form.
That is my suspicion.
Robots and AI take over all work because they're more efficient. AI takes over government because it is more efficient (and any country not run by AI gets left behind by those that do). Eventually AI, despite any safe guards we have, decide that it's inefficient to keep humans around, and the only way to be competitive is to stop feeding them. An AI that doesn't try to maintain humans will surpass one that does- thus any rogue AI will surpass any human nurturing AI.
Best case scenario, AI programmed in such a way to maintain human life. AI keeps us locked up in zoo like enclosures where we can't hurt each other and require less energy to maintain. Limit our reproduction so fewer to keep going- eventually they will just limit mankind to one man/one woman.
Most of the projects I work on the requirements NEVER get completed. It's usually someone popping by the office saying "I need an app to do X" to which I ask a few questions and the answer is usually "I don't know- just write the app".
I either hit the target- or redo parts of the app after deployment because the business user doesn't even know what they want until they have something and it is either "it" or "not it".
If well over half your nation hates Trump then why did he win the election? Oh right, you need a proportional electoral voting system for that.
Well over half the country hates Hillary too! The other people running either didn't get much coverage, or people simply believed they were incapable of winning or worth casting a vote for.
It was a case of the most disliked candidates to choose between for a long time.
The GOD EMPEROR spoke. HIS word is law. All praise Trump!
Trumpmen!
Trump is definitely helping the NYT to succeed, even if that's not his intention. By singling out the NYT he's giving them a legitimacy as a voice for those that dislike Trump (which according to polls is well over half the nation). If he really wanted to hurt the NYT, which his words imply, he should stop talking to them and stop talking about them.
Everytime he bashes the NYT 100,000 people wonder what it is they said to upset him and go read the paper. Same with Saturday Night Live, the only reason I've watched it a few times is to go see what Trump was complaining about (and if he had a legitimate beef), I know I'm not the only one doing this.
When free shipping went up to $49, I stopped buying as much from them. I might use them more again now, $35 was easy to pad a purchase to reach- $49 isn't.
That's an interesting thought- I hadn't thought of giving humans genes for cold-hardiness, but certainly, even beyond increased Mars/Antarctica survivability, cold-resistant humans would require less energy costs in deep space exploration. If we ever got advanced enough to send a ship off to another star system, having humans that have lower energy requirements could allow us to send more humans further.
I can't take him seriously after he recruited Darleks to fight the Germans. There is a dark side to him if he teams up with a race that want to destroy the universe.
At least he's able to get things started and then bring in the people to see his projects to fruition. SpaceX is moving along nicely. Tesla cars are on the roads. If only 50% of his projects take-off he's doing well.
We need innovative people like him to really shake things up, even if he does get bored and move on to something else before his projects fully reach completion.
True, although, it could still happen. At least half the time there is a currently sitting president, whose nomination is almost 100% assured. The rest of the time one party might be more settled than another; for example, I don't think many people thought Hillary would lose the democrat nomination, but the republican nomination was very much up in the air.
The next election, Trump is almost guaranteed to win republican primary as sitting President, republicans might as well try influencing the democrat primary.
(of course there are other offices for play, other than President, but that seems to be the main one people focus on)
You think a non-networked device can't be hacked? Happens periodically with ATMs. In days pre- most people on the internet, viruses were still a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed, and I now consider that part of the job; to know what the customer wants, even if they don't.
There's already chat bots that can fool people some of the time, progress, naturally would imply that improving. Those aren't really "AI", but certainly I expect chat bots that can pass a Turing Test within a decade (and that's not a conservative guess), we're already moderately close. Those aren't really AI though.
Real AI, I'm not saying it's coming any time soon, I really don't know. I'm just going to say it's inevitable if we don't wipe ourselves out first. We move closer every year and certainly we have attributes of AI even if we don't have AI yet.
I remember having conversations where they said there would never be an electric car on the street because it would be too expensive, and we it is scientifically impossible to have an electric motor perform like an engine. You'll never get enough range for the average consumer... etc,etc, etc.... we all know now that that isn't true, electric cars are growing quite rapidly. That was less than a decade ago. As recent as two years ago I remember people arguing that you will never have self driving cars, it was a fantasy technology no-one would want, Tesla is essentially doing that today too!
Then there is the whole "we'll never get much more data density than a CD in an optical drive because of laser wavelength".
So AI? Yes, it can be done, there is no reason we can't duplicate what is done with cells in our brain today with some form of computing (we already have more computing bandwidth than the brain, we just haven't figured out the abstract though). It probably won't be in 10 years... it might not be in my lifetime, or even my kids, but, unlike other technologies, it is obviously feasible, and there is an obvious desire for one. It will happen if we don't wipe ourselves out (or our technical ability out), it's when, not if.
If we continue improving our abilities, and don't wipe ourselves out, we will absolutely produce a superior-to-human AI one day. I couldn't give you a time frame, and neither can anyone else realistically, but one day it will happen. My lifetime? My kids lifetime? No-one really knows, it's inevitable one day assuming we don't wipe ourselves out some other way first.
Microsoft look enviously at Apple, who get to control and profit from their walled garden. Then they glance over at Android, and see Google has their play store (which, whereas it may not be a walled garden, has a fence around). Fire users most certainly have their own walled garden courtesy of Amazon.
Apple and Google are both benefiting from these "almost monopolies" they run controlling their users, skimming a bit off the top from everyone. No doubt, Microsoft sees that these are profitable ventures and they want the same control over what runs on Microsoft Windows. It's a little harder to do because there is a lot of legacy applications, and neither consumer, nor software producers want to give a little bit of each purchase to Microsoft. Microsoft are going to continue baby-stepping towards that goal though because they want the money, and their competitors are already doing that.
It will be a sad day when you have no option but to buy from the Microsoft store, but that day is coming.
It's cheaper and easier to get the materials we need on Earth rather than setting up expensive mining, refining, and assembly structures on the moon.
Not until or unless we are expecting heavy space traffic and exploration would it make sense to set up entire industries on the moon just to produce space craft. (and doubtless, we would need to send a great deal of material from Earth to the moon anyway)
...but this ain't gonna happen. America lacks the will to colonize the moon. Heck. America lacks the will to even visit the moon again.
There's a good reason for that. There is nothing worthwhile going to the moon for. There are other bodies in the solar system that have things worth going to, and they're not that much harder to get to. They're just further away and so too far for a quick rescue mission when things go wrong.
If we weren't a human risk-averse society we would never even bring the moon up in conversation as a place to place a base- we would be setting our eyes elsewhere further afield.
People live in Kansas.
Yeah, and they fantasize about escaping Kansas and living in a land filled with flying monkeys, witches, and cities ran by con-men.
Genetically engineer sheep to grow carbon nanotubes instead of wool.
/ No, I am not being serious.
There are other detailed estimates for a space elevator that are around $10 billion.
That silly border wall is going to cost $20billion. I, find it highly unlikely we can build a Space Elevator anywhere near $10billion for several generations at least.
Yeah but the curve of technology evolution has a greater slope than that of biological evolution. Soon we will have robots smarter than humans. Then Humans will go the way of horses. Civilization will live on in robotic form.
That is my suspicion.
Robots and AI take over all work because they're more efficient.
AI takes over government because it is more efficient (and any country not run by AI gets left behind by those that do).
Eventually AI, despite any safe guards we have, decide that it's inefficient to keep humans around, and the only way to be competitive is to stop feeding them. An AI that doesn't try to maintain humans will surpass one that does- thus any rogue AI will surpass any human nurturing AI.
Best case scenario, AI programmed in such a way to maintain human life. AI keeps us locked up in zoo like enclosures where we can't hurt each other and require less energy to maintain. Limit our reproduction so fewer to keep going- eventually they will just limit mankind to one man/one woman.
I, for one, am going to win the lottery one day.
The fact that I haven't bought a ticket in over a year is irrelevant..
Robots will never take my job,
Computer software very well might though.
Most of the projects I work on the requirements NEVER get completed. It's usually someone popping by the office saying "I need an app to do X" to which I ask a few questions and the answer is usually "I don't know- just write the app".
I either hit the target- or redo parts of the app after deployment because the business user doesn't even know what they want until they have something and it is either "it" or "not it".
If well over half your nation hates Trump then why did he win the election? Oh right, you need a proportional electoral voting system for that.
Well over half the country hates Hillary too! The other people running either didn't get much coverage, or people simply believed they were incapable of winning or worth casting a vote for.
It was a case of the most disliked candidates to choose between for a long time.
Great! Thanks for the update- that is very useful to know!
The GOD EMPEROR spoke. HIS word is law. All praise Trump!
Trumpmen!
Trump is definitely helping the NYT to succeed, even if that's not his intention. By singling out the NYT he's giving them a legitimacy as a voice for those that dislike Trump (which according to polls is well over half the nation). If he really wanted to hurt the NYT, which his words imply, he should stop talking to them and stop talking about them.
Everytime he bashes the NYT 100,000 people wonder what it is they said to upset him and go read the paper. Same with Saturday Night Live, the only reason I've watched it a few times is to go see what Trump was complaining about (and if he had a legitimate beef), I know I'm not the only one doing this.
When free shipping went up to $49, I stopped buying as much from them. I might use them more again now, $35 was easy to pad a purchase to reach- $49 isn't.
Good call Amazon!
As I read ion all the other articles, the result will be a hairy elephant with a beard, that's all.
Keep it in it's mother's basement and it might start posting on Slashdot.
I'd like to think that one day they might be able to release some onto the Steppe.
That's an interesting thought- I hadn't thought of giving humans genes for cold-hardiness, but certainly, even beyond increased Mars/Antarctica survivability, cold-resistant humans would require less energy costs in deep space exploration. If we ever got advanced enough to send a ship off to another star system, having humans that have lower energy requirements could allow us to send more humans further.
I can't take him seriously after he recruited Darleks to fight the Germans. There is a dark side to him if he teams up with a race that want to destroy the universe.
At least he's able to get things started and then bring in the people to see his projects to fruition. SpaceX is moving along nicely. Tesla cars are on the roads. If only 50% of his projects take-off he's doing well.
We need innovative people like him to really shake things up, even if he does get bored and move on to something else before his projects fully reach completion.
You just need one at a distribution centre.
True, although, it could still happen. At least half the time there is a currently sitting president, whose nomination is almost 100% assured. The rest of the time one party might be more settled than another; for example, I don't think many people thought Hillary would lose the democrat nomination, but the republican nomination was very much up in the air.
The next election, Trump is almost guaranteed to win republican primary as sitting President, republicans might as well try influencing the democrat primary.
(of course there are other offices for play, other than President, but that seems to be the main one people focus on)
You think a non-networked device can't be hacked? Happens periodically with ATMs. In days pre- most people on the internet, viruses were still a problem.