Right now, phones have become a critical lifeline to a lot of people... not just for playing flappybird.
Really? How so?
Assuming that the deactivated phones still had access to emergency services (and I see no reason they wouldn't), who are these "lot of people" who can't live without their cell phones for the few hours it would take to re-enable them?
Now that being said, I disagree with the proposal for the simple reason that I believe this should be consumer choice. I am not required to install a security system in my house, even though this may deter break-ins. I similarly fail to see a reason I should be required to purchase a device with built-in security software.
Cute story....if there wasn't so much wrong with it:
If some artificial intelligence would actually become smarter than humans, it would certainly not expose that ability to the puny carbon units it is fed by.
Why not? Even assuming the intelligence was programmed with a desire for growth, why would it not expose it's intelligence to humans?
for some reason it would be good to connect it to the InterNet.
And of course they wouldn't monitor the data being sent/received by this intelligence....of course nobody would think of that. Or is this machine so smart that it immediately exploits weaknesses in the routing hardware so it can hide it's intent.
It would start to use its superior abilities to buy more and more corporations
You'd have to earn an pretty insane amount of money on the stock market to start buying major corporations. There is very little reason to believe that even with limitless computing power/intelligence that the required sort of money could be made on the stock market in a reasonable time frame, especially starting from virtually $0.
At some point, the AI will have accumulated enough power by buying politicians,
Unfortunately for our hapless AI, politicians are still voted into power. We would have to assume that this AI also had the social skills necessary to determine the most likely to win candidate and influence them according to its needs. Keep in mind, it would be competing with every other major corporation within its political realm in influencing these candidates. Many computer/technical geeks tend to think that intelligence trumps all in terms of gaining money/power.....but history very much tells us otherwise.
it can steer towards a totalitarian state, which will end any kind of opposition by a combination of total surveillance and violent law enforcement.
It takes a pretty pessimistic view of humans to believe they would allow this, when this super intelligence could be stopped with a sledgehammer to it's primary data banks.
The AI will enslave the puny carbon units, which by then will continue to exist only to excavate the resources needed for further growth,
Again...humans are the problem. It would make far more sense to develop a society where humans were happy to continue excavating resources for the AI. Improved health care, education, faster internet for all, etc. Attempting to enslave / control a large portion of the population has historically proven to be a pretty foolish thing to do.
the first one to achieve a human-like AI would probably use it to make his life better, not wasting his advantage to tell others.
Again, a pretty negative view of people. I find most people to be reasonably helpful, fair-minded and generally "nice" to one another. I find that people sometimes tend to make pretty irrational decisions, but that's part of their charm:-).
Yes, there are the jerks out there but most of them are pretty well confined to reddit and the Blizzard forums....just avoid those and you'll find people to be fairly reasonable
It is much more likely that it would operate covertly to its advantage and growth, until the day the carbon units have become irrelevant for its sustenance.
I find this equally as unlikely. Humans (as a species) likely crave advantage and growth due to evolutionary pressures. I fail to see why an artificially developed intelligence would have any such similar motivations.
However, if computers were making all the "big" decisions, we'd likely "watch a different movie".
When playing chess, do you have your computer sitting next to you advising what move to make? Probably not...cause that would make for a very boring game.
Similarly, if computers were making the big decisions, there would always be some set of decisions that you would not rely on the computer for. Self-improvement, humanitarian works, physical and creative activities would possibly become much more prevalent as rankings of societal status than net worth.
Of course, based on Hollywood it's more likely to all end up in a Terminator / Matrix outcome. And if there's one thing I know....Hollywood is really good at predicting the future. Now, where did I leave my hoverboard?
...'Artificial intelligence' is just programmed software...instructions being executed
To be fair, there is very little indication that "Actual Intelligence" isn't just programmed software....instructions be executed. There is actually a bit of evidence that this is actually the case.
That being said, my biggest issue with Kurzweil is the ridiculous timeframe he proposes. His claim that the "Singularity" may occur within current people's lifetime seems much more like wish-fulfillment than any kind of reasonably intelligent estimate.
My second biggest issue is that even if we could develop an AI (massive hurdle), we still know so little about how the brain actually functions, and how to interact with it, that any idea of "uploading" a consciousness to an AI falls completely within the realm of speculative fiction.
unlike VPN/proxy solutions. It's also fast -- even though the IPv6 is tunnelled, I can't perceive any speed issues when watching content this way.
Most of the VPN/proxy solutions for Netflix are also pretty fast (e.g. unblock-us.com). The trick is they only need to proxy during the initial authentication. Once that is done, data is streamed directly to your PC. That's why most of the services only work with a (large) subset of streaming sites....they have to be setup on the proxy providers site to handle the redirection during the authentication process.
I was using unblock-us for a while, and it worked flawlessly. I only stopped as there wasn't enough additional content on US netflix for me to justify paying for it.
Personally I find I don't have much of need to pirate content now that I have Netflix
Really? I've tried both canadian and american netflix, and I find the quality / quantity of movies available to be pretty crappy. Other than a few TV series, it seems to be pretty much the same as cable: "500 channels and nothing on".
That being said, at $7 a month, it's definitely worth it for the 2-4 hours of entertainment I get per week. I just wish the rest of the content producers would realize that there are virtually truckloads of money to be made by providing content on demand with a subscription service.
Has the TV/movie producers learned nothing from Apple and the music industry? Change is coming....either they can lead or they can become outdated.
To me if you were going to call something "copyright trolling" it would be more like using copyright letters to silence people, aka SLAPP
And that is exactly what is happening here. See here for more details.
Specifically, they are using a scheme called "speculative invoicing", described as: "sending hundreds or thousands of demand letters alleging copyright infringement and seeking thousands of dollars in compensation. Those cases rarely - if ever - go to court as the intent is simply to scare enough people into settling in order to generate a profit."
So far, they have been choosing to see feedback like that as "beta's not ready for primetime."
The message they really don't seem to be getting isn't so much about Beta, it's about the whole philosophy of Slashdot.
Most of us here want an intelligent, relevant, geek-driven discussion system....around stories that are relatively new and/or interesting.
Dice seems to want to make the site into a news aggregation service, where comments / discussion are an afterthought.
I have no idea what they are smoking to thing that yet another geek/tech news site is going to offer that will give them good financial results.
Kill/maim the comments, and NOBODY is going to come to Slashdot. The news stories are typically days (at best) old, the editing is atrocious, stories are regularly duplicated, the summaries often misrepresent or entirely contradict the story......but we don't care. It's the comments we come here for!
1) Lack of familiarity: People bitch and moan and complain whenever MS makes the slightest change to their UI. Imagine having to learn a new OS, as well as all the new apps.
"Uhh, where's my C: drive?"
"Where did all my favorites go?"
" How do I get my pictures off my camera?"
2) Lack of online support. Any of the above question, you can easily Google the answer to for windows. Or you can even call Microsoft....and they may actually help. Try and ask where your C: drive is on a Linux forum, and see all the polite and helpful responses you get.
3) Lack of "buddy" support. Most poeple know someone who is a "computer expert" at Windows. Often they are only an "expert" because they are a rabid gamer, use Windows at work, generally "good" with computers. A much smaller number are "experts" because they are in IT or IS. A very small number are "experts" at Linux
4) Migration. It's a huge PITA moving items from one windows version to the next, and getting things set up in a similar manner that the user is accustomed to. Moving to a whole new OS is a massive pain.
No, I actively believe there are no gods. The same as I actively believe there is no Santa Claus (spoiler alert), no Bigfoot, and no highest prime number.
I actively believe that there are no entities in the universe with supernatural powers. This pretty much eliminates any reasonable definition of "gods".
I don't think anyone is saying to ignore them. Just don't engage them.
Deal with the claptrap with education, not rhetoric...which is all this debate is going to be.
Bill Nye would serve the world much better by producing more educational science videos aimed at kids, making them realize that (a) science is neat! (b) science works (c) science actually describes the way the world works.
This would have a much better success rate at moving people away from Ham's style of dogma than this farcical "debate" will....
You miss a very important point on both sides. Let me reword that for you:
1) Pro Net Neutrality: Internet Service Providers (ISP) should not dictate which data sources are allowed, how much bandwidth is allowed from each data source, or charge differently for data sources. For example, streaming video creates up to a third of internet traffic in the evening hours. As a result, ISP's are temped to reduce bandwidth allowed from streaming to free up resources. Net neutrality would allow this.
Net neutrality would NOT allow the ISP to preferentially reduce bandwidth from Netflix, while maintaining bandwidth for another streaming service (e.g. their own or partner VOD services).
2) Anti Net Neutrality: The ISP's own their equipment, pay for their bandwidth, and can do what they want with it. If they want to preferentially shape network traffic for whatever reason (higher profits, preferential access to their own services, partner agreements, etc.), that is their right. This is usually the business point of view.
After the debate is over, anyone being intellectually honest should be willing to recognize which points were credible or compelling for both sides, and which were not
And there's the problem. Many people aren't either intellectually honest enough, or intellectually capable enough to judge accurately as to which points are credible or compelling. They'll just base it on either (a) points that reinforce their preconceived notions, or (b) points which sound good, or which the opponent has a difficult time immediately responding to.
Personally, I think he is easily dismissed as he apparently believes the universe is 6500 years old, Noah's flood actually occurred and that dinosaurs co-existed with humans.
For these to be true, so much of our scientific knowledge would have to be so wrong that it would be an absolute "miracle" that any of our technology worked at all.
I don't believe scientists should waste time debating people who use a different standard of truth. I especially think it's a bad idea to grant any amount of scientific legitimacy to people like Ham by engaging in this sort of activity.
If whoever organized this wants a debate, have Ham debate a rabbi, priest, imam, monk or any other sort of religious leader. Mixing a religious debate with science makes as much sense as having him debate a plumber.
Oh please, cause nobody else has made a version of Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, etc other than Disney, as they are all so terrified of Disney's army of lawyers?
Take a look at IMDB sometime...you'll find multiple versions of all of the above....:rollseyes:
f) Fujitsu made computers in 1954, and PC's in 1981, before the Mac
But yeah...you were right about IBM & kinda right about Dell (though it could be argued it was just a rename of his PC's Limited...which started in 1984), so I guess 2 out of 8 is a good day for you....
Still requires a person to load a bunch of pictures of air planes, and tell it to "learn" these objects. It's not really learning objects on its own
But that is exactly what people do. Other than a few hard-wired patterns (e.g. faces), we "learn" to recognize objects by being exposed to multiple examples of those objects and told the label to apply to them.
Though the argument could be made that people don't learn on their own either...
Slashdot Mirror
Really? How so?
Assuming that the deactivated phones still had access to emergency services (and I see no reason they wouldn't), who are these "lot of people" who can't live without their cell phones for the few hours it would take to re-enable them?
Now that being said, I disagree with the proposal for the simple reason that I believe this should be consumer choice. I am not required to install a security system in my house, even though this may deter break-ins. I similarly fail to see a reason I should be required to purchase a device with built-in security software.
Cute story....if there wasn't so much wrong with it:
Why not? Even assuming the intelligence was programmed with a desire for growth, why would it not expose it's intelligence to humans?
And of course they wouldn't monitor the data being sent/received by this intelligence....of course nobody would think of that. Or is this machine so smart that it immediately exploits weaknesses in the routing hardware so it can hide it's intent.
You'd have to earn an pretty insane amount of money on the stock market to start buying major corporations. There is very little reason to believe that even with limitless computing power/intelligence that the required sort of money could be made on the stock market in a reasonable time frame, especially starting from virtually $0.
Unfortunately for our hapless AI, politicians are still voted into power. We would have to assume that this AI also had the social skills necessary to determine the most likely to win candidate and influence them according to its needs. Keep in mind, it would be competing with every other major corporation within its political realm in influencing these candidates. Many computer/technical geeks tend to think that intelligence trumps all in terms of gaining money/power.....but history very much tells us otherwise.
It takes a pretty pessimistic view of humans to believe they would allow this, when this super intelligence could be stopped with a sledgehammer to it's primary data banks.
Again...humans are the problem. It would make far more sense to develop a society where humans were happy to continue excavating resources for the AI. Improved health care, education, faster internet for all, etc. Attempting to enslave / control a large portion of the population has historically proven to be a pretty foolish thing to do.
Again, a pretty negative view of people. I find most people to be reasonably helpful, fair-minded and generally "nice" to one another. I find that people sometimes tend to make pretty irrational decisions, but that's part of their charm :-).
Yes, there are the jerks out there but most of them are pretty well confined to reddit and the Blizzard forums....just avoid those and you'll find people to be fairly reasonable
I find this equally as unlikely. Humans (as a species) likely crave advantage and growth due to evolutionary pressures. I fail to see why an artificially developed intelligence would have any such similar motivations.
However, if computers were making all the "big" decisions, we'd likely "watch a different movie".
When playing chess, do you have your computer sitting next to you advising what move to make? Probably not...cause that would make for a very boring game.
Similarly, if computers were making the big decisions, there would always be some set of decisions that you would not rely on the computer for. Self-improvement, humanitarian works, physical and creative activities would possibly become much more prevalent as rankings of societal status than net worth.
Of course, based on Hollywood it's more likely to all end up in a Terminator / Matrix outcome. And if there's one thing I know....Hollywood is really good at predicting the future. Now, where did I leave my hoverboard?
To be fair, there is very little indication that "Actual Intelligence" isn't just programmed software....instructions be executed. There is actually a bit of evidence that this is actually the case.
That being said, my biggest issue with Kurzweil is the ridiculous timeframe he proposes. His claim that the "Singularity" may occur within current people's lifetime seems much more like wish-fulfillment than any kind of reasonably intelligent estimate.
My second biggest issue is that even if we could develop an AI (massive hurdle), we still know so little about how the brain actually functions, and how to interact with it, that any idea of "uploading" a consciousness to an AI falls completely within the realm of speculative fiction.
Most of the VPN/proxy solutions for Netflix are also pretty fast (e.g. unblock-us.com). The trick is they only need to proxy during the initial authentication. Once that is done, data is streamed directly to your PC. That's why most of the services only work with a (large) subset of streaming sites....they have to be setup on the proxy providers site to handle the redirection during the authentication process.
I was using unblock-us for a while, and it worked flawlessly. I only stopped as there wasn't enough additional content on US netflix for me to justify paying for it.
Really? I've tried both canadian and american netflix, and I find the quality / quantity of movies available to be pretty crappy. Other than a few TV series, it seems to be pretty much the same as cable: "500 channels and nothing on".
That being said, at $7 a month, it's definitely worth it for the 2-4 hours of entertainment I get per week. I just wish the rest of the content producers would realize that there are virtually truckloads of money to be made by providing content on demand with a subscription service.
Has the TV/movie producers learned nothing from Apple and the music industry? Change is coming....either they can lead or they can become outdated.
And that is exactly what is happening here. See here for more details.
Specifically, they are using a scheme called "speculative invoicing", described as:
"sending hundreds or thousands of demand letters alleging copyright infringement and seeking thousands of dollars in compensation. Those cases rarely - if ever - go to court as the intent is simply to scare enough people into settling in order to generate a profit."
2 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, fully loaded with 100 F/A-18's each, and money left over for pilots/crew and munitions.
The message they really don't seem to be getting isn't so much about Beta, it's about the whole philosophy of Slashdot.
Most of us here want an intelligent, relevant, geek-driven discussion system....around stories that are relatively new and/or interesting.
Dice seems to want to make the site into a news aggregation service, where comments / discussion are an afterthought.
I have no idea what they are smoking to thing that yet another geek/tech news site is going to offer that will give them good financial results.
Kill/maim the comments, and NOBODY is going to come to Slashdot. The news stories are typically days (at best) old, the editing is atrocious, stories are regularly duplicated, the summaries often misrepresent or entirely contradict the story......but we don't care. It's the comments we come here for!
i.e:
Commenters, commenters, commenters!
Oh, and Fuck Beta.
10 years you say!?!
Wow...I really need to get a life....
What we really need is a kill-switch for a certain Slashy website that has a new version between alpha and gamma coming out this month.
I for one, DON'T welcome our new robotic post-deleting censorship-embracing overlords!
See you all after the boycott. Actually, I probably won't. Auto-deleting posts is pretty much the last straw for me here.
You missed some fairly important points:
1) Lack of familiarity: People bitch and moan and complain whenever MS makes the slightest change to their UI. Imagine having to learn a new OS, as well as all the new apps.
"Uhh, where's my C: drive?"
"Where did all my favorites go?"
" How do I get my pictures off my camera?"
2) Lack of online support. Any of the above question, you can easily Google the answer to for windows. Or you can even call Microsoft....and they may actually help. Try and ask where your C: drive is on a Linux forum, and see all the polite and helpful responses you get.
3) Lack of "buddy" support. Most poeple know someone who is a "computer expert" at Windows. Often they are only an "expert" because they are a rabid gamer, use Windows at work, generally "good" with computers. A much smaller number are "experts" because they are in IT or IS. A very small number are "experts" at Linux
4) Migration. It's a huge PITA moving items from one windows version to the next, and getting things set up in a similar manner that the user is accustomed to. Moving to a whole new OS is a massive pain.
No, I actively believe there are no gods. The same as I actively believe there is no Santa Claus (spoiler alert), no Bigfoot, and no highest prime number.
I actively believe that there are no entities in the universe with supernatural powers. This pretty much eliminates any reasonable definition of "gods".
That word doesn't mean what you think it means.
Nobody is saying don't try. We are saying don't waste resources on something that will have a very high failure rate.
Bill Nye would serve society much better by producing more educational videos for kids than this garbage.
I'm disappointed.
I don't think anyone is saying to ignore them. Just don't engage them.
Deal with the claptrap with education, not rhetoric...which is all this debate is going to be.
Bill Nye would serve the world much better by producing more educational science videos aimed at kids, making them realize that
(a) science is neat!
(b) science works
(c) science actually describes the way the world works.
This would have a much better success rate at moving people away from Ham's style of dogma than this farcical "debate" will....
You miss a very important point on both sides. Let me reword that for you:
1) Pro Net Neutrality: Internet Service Providers (ISP) should not dictate which data sources are allowed, how much bandwidth is allowed from each data source, or charge differently for data sources. For example, streaming video creates up to a third of internet traffic in the evening hours. As a result, ISP's are temped to reduce bandwidth allowed from streaming to free up resources. Net neutrality would allow this.
Net neutrality would NOT allow the ISP to preferentially reduce bandwidth from Netflix, while maintaining bandwidth for another streaming service (e.g. their own or partner VOD services).
2) Anti Net Neutrality: The ISP's own their equipment, pay for their bandwidth, and can do what they want with it. If they want to preferentially shape network traffic for whatever reason (higher profits, preferential access to their own services, partner agreements, etc.), that is their right. This is usually the business point of view.
Chrisopher Hitchens
Me
There's two for you.
And there's the problem. Many people aren't either intellectually honest enough, or intellectually capable enough to judge accurately as to which points are credible or compelling. They'll just base it on either (a) points that reinforce their preconceived notions, or (b) points which sound good, or which the opponent has a difficult time immediately responding to.
Personally, I think he is easily dismissed as he apparently believes the universe is 6500 years old, Noah's flood actually occurred and that dinosaurs co-existed with humans.
For these to be true, so much of our scientific knowledge would have to be so wrong that it would be an absolute "miracle" that any of our technology worked at all.
I don't believe scientists should waste time debating people who use a different standard of truth. I especially think it's a bad idea to grant any amount of scientific legitimacy to people like Ham by engaging in this sort of activity.
If whoever organized this wants a debate, have Ham debate a rabbi, priest, imam, monk or any other sort of religious leader. Mixing a religious debate with science makes as much sense as having him debate a plumber.
Oh please, cause nobody else has made a version of Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, etc other than Disney, as they are all so terrified of Disney's army of lawyers?
Take a look at IMDB sometime...you'll find multiple versions of all of the above.... :rollseyes:
Yes, given that's exactly what an anecdote is. And evidence derived from such is precisely "anecdotal evidence".
Unfortunately apparently none of those courses were English courses. Learning what words mean is also extraordinarily valuable.
And this is why Slashdot needs a "Wrong" moderation.
a) The quote was specifically "computers", not "PC's"
b) He mentioned HP....but you conveniently ignored that one.
c) Sony made it's first computer (a PC even) in 1982, before the Mac
d) NEC still makes computers (servers)
e) Acer was making PC's in 1983, before the Mac
f) Fujitsu made computers in 1954, and PC's in 1981, before the Mac
But yeah...you were right about IBM & kinda right about Dell (though it could be argued it was just a rename of his PC's Limited...which started in 1984), so I guess 2 out of 8 is a good day for you....
But that is exactly what people do. Other than a few hard-wired patterns (e.g. faces), we "learn" to recognize objects by being exposed to multiple examples of those objects and told the label to apply to them.
Though the argument could be made that people don't learn on their own either...