On second thought I'm going to revise my opinion on this subject: Google lacks depth and maturity, therefore it's appealing to 13-17 year olds, who think it's 'cool'.
1. A study by Google about Google finds that kids think Google is cool. TOTALLY LEGIT.
2. 13-17 year olds are universally recognized as being rational, thoughtful, pro-active, and mature in their decision-making processes. TOTALLY LEGIT.
We should all feel insulted by Google over this. Apparently they think we're all violently stupid.
Glad I don't work for that company. I'd rather be unemployed than have anyone put something like that in any part of my body. I know it's not mandatory, but still..
No, see, YOU are the one who isn't thinking this through.
The robots are taking over! THE END IS NIGH!
That's what you guys always sound like. You have no perspective! Try talking to people in their 60's and older. Get lucky and find someone in their 80's or 90's. They've seen all this crap happen before in one form or another; it always blows over. 50 years ago people led very different lives, did very different jobs. 50 years from now the story will be THE SAME. STOP PANICKING.
I'm not even going to bother answering all your little questions. All I have to say is this: Human beings will NEVER BE OBSOLETE. NEVER. Machines exist to serve HUMANS, not the other way around. There will ALWAYS be things for humans to do. ALWAYS. So stop with your sky-is-falling nonsense.
Do you always believe everything the media tells you? Really? Read my lips: 'Robots' are not going to take everyones jobs. Human beings will not EVER become 'obsolete'. EVERY TIME there is a technological 'revolution' of some sort there are ALWAYS Chicken Littles running around, waving their arms in panic, yelling 'The SKY IS FALLING!!!1! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!1!!' and it never happens. This, too, shall pass. Just keep repeating that to yourself like a mantra, you'll be FINE. In the meantime please brush up on you basic math skills, and you'll see why the government can't hand out a few thousand dollars a month to 300,000,000 citizens ad infinitum, not unless the art of alchemy is resurrected and we can start turning lead into gold, or find a Magic Lamp and ask the Djin inside to grant our wishes.
If the public doesn't care about privacy, well the expectation of privacy will cease to exist.
"For YOU", as the meme goes. Privacy is not decided by the majority, it is decided by the individual. If you fall prey to the troll/meme that privacy is dead and stop protecting your own, then you only have yourself to blame -- and you're helping perpetuate the troll/meme that social media, government agencies, and law enforcement would have you fall for. Keep protecting your private life from the prying eyes of whoever would pry into it. Even if you're not 100% successful, you'll still have some parts of your life that are yours and yours alone, as it should be. Otherwise, do you not see that you'd be living like a convict in a prison, or an animal on a farm, or like a perpetual child, watched and monitored 24/7/365? That's where things are headed if people don't come back around to the basic truth that 'privacy' is a normal, natural, healthy human need, not a sickness or a sign of criminal activity.
Well, I say your 'argument' is flawed then, because it does not encompass the entire human race, only 'Western countries', which doesn't amount to more than a small fraction of the total human population of the Earth.
This AC is being an AC, but he/she/it isn't completely wrong either. The Internet is becoming increasingly unusable. No matter what precautions you're taking, you're putting yourself at an unknown level of risk just by using it at all. Sadly I don't expect this situation to improve, I expect it to get worse. Even the most egalitarian and benign governments are monitoring the Internet to one extent or another, and personally I don't trust any corporation in any country to obey privacy laws if they think they can get away with it, and if they think there's money to be made from collecting and using your personally identifiable data.
I sincerely doubt there's ever going to be any 'post scarcity' while the human race keeps making babies like our species is in danger of going extinct or something. We're not even in control of our basic urges; how do you expect us to attain a level of civilization that would allow people to never have to work again? We're not anywhere near evolved enough. You don't give people something they have to do, they get bored, then they start causing trouble. For some people 'causing trouble' means starting a war. On a national level it means crime -- crimes of boredom. UBI is for all intents and purposed never going to happen. I wish everyone would just give it up already. Come back in a few thousand more years.
..and yet again we have some idiotic AC who doesn't know how things work. If we reach the point where things are so bad that the U.S. military proper is attacking U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, then all bets are off, the U.S. won't really exist anymore, and likely the whole rest of the world will be going to hell in a handbasket with it, but until then it's illegal for U.S. military to operate in such a way on U.S. soil, any such order would be interpreted correctly as illegal, and would not be followed. In fact they'd side with the citizens against the government.
Please post your silly troll posts elsewhere, like 4chan, where they belong. They're not credible in the least here.
In case you haven't noticed, the vast majority of gun owners are not rich people, and in fact hate rich people, so you're completely and totally wrong.
A 'modern military' isn't a ROBOT that blindly follows orders. If the military is given orders that they interpret as unlawful then they'll do nothing. If the government becomes so thoroughly corrupt, they'll side with the people; you're completely and totally wrong.
There needs to be two things: something like what IBM is developing here, and an 'off' switch that the computer can't override, so the driver can drive normally. I think a sensor in the steering wheel that detects when you've got at least one hand on it would be suffcient for an on-demand 'off' switch, as well as a switch on the dash to put the vehicle in manual drive mode.
..and I'd like to remind you (and them!) that we (U.S. citizens, that is) have guns, and you'll never get rid of them, either, so I'd recommend to them (shitty rich people who think they're better than everyone else and therefore should 'rule' us) that they tread lightly, lest something unfortunate has to occur. Not even a threat, just a simple statement of fact.
Apparently you're so technologically uninformed that you're not aware that this sort of thing can be and is done by automated systems based on automatically collected and analyzed data, and the technology to do so has been around for quite some time now.
The entire subject is silly and I'm going make a point of ignoring it from now on. In every generation there are always people who are predisposed to run around like chickens with their heads cut off proclaiming the sky is falling! But it never does.
If there's no longer going to be any such thing as privacy then email becomes less and less attractive a communication option. The thought of Comcast inserting targeted ads into my private email messages makes my skin crawl. Not sure what can be done about it except to use the Internet as little as possible.
Apparently you've never heard the phrase 'get you coming and going': You have to PAY for the speed, and next they'll find some reason why they need to increase your MONTHLY BILL. That way they get more from you up front, and more for all your personal data from their so-called 'partner companies' when they sell you out to them.
I was just going to say.. Microsoft is getting involved with Linux, now AT&T? How much longer, do you all think, before there are enough big, nosy, control-freak corporate entities involved with Linux, to subvert it into just another spyware/malware platform like Windows? At some point I'm sure they'd manage to do away with this silly inconvenient 'open source' nonsense, seeing as how they'll have invested all the time and money and manpower into it, right?
So, when Linux is fully owned and subverted, what will the next 'free open source' operating system be called?
I think aside from one-liner cheap-shots I'll just save my sense of humor for people I actually know; too many idiots on the Internets who are total buzzkills, taking something that was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek and turning it into some big, grave debate about the Fate Of The World. Why so serious, Slashdot? Nothing we say or do here has any impact whatsoever on the course things are going to take; it's not much more than entertainment, really.
Also, this: It's not going to be anywhere near as bad as way too many people THINK it's going to be. Replace the word 'robots' or 'AI' (which isn't even the right term for the technology, damnit!) with $SOMETHING_ELSE_FROM_THE_PAST, and you see this has all happened before and guess what, we're all still here, the sky didn't fall, humanity went on -- and that's exactly what'll happen THIS time, too.
Too long, didn't read version: You're all being VERY silly about this. Lighten the heck up, you knuckleheads.
So let me get this straight: You think in the next 15 to 20 years, we'll have:
* Robotic wife
* Robotic kids
Is that correct? So is what you're saying is that you want to fuck a machine every night, and have faux offspring?
I think, rather than that unlikely scenario, one of two or three things has happened here:
1. You just didn't read every single word
2. You have no sense of humor, whatsoever
3. You're just looking to start a fight by way of being obtuse
How about you lighten up, buddy? You're harshing my mellow.
For the benefit of the rest of the studio audience who Just Don't Get It: I'm lampooning all these sky-is-falling-everybody-panic pseudo-news stories about 'robots taking everyone's jobs'. Chuckle at it or not, your choice; have a nice day.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
On second thought I'm going to revise my opinion on this subject: Google lacks depth and maturity, therefore it's appealing to 13-17 year olds, who think it's 'cool'.
1. A study by Google about Google finds that kids think Google is cool. TOTALLY LEGIT.
2. 13-17 year olds are universally recognized as being rational, thoughtful, pro-active, and mature in their decision-making processes. TOTALLY LEGIT.
We should all feel insulted by Google over this. Apparently they think we're all violently stupid.
Glad I don't work for that company. I'd rather be unemployed than have anyone put something like that in any part of my body. I know it's not mandatory, but still..
The robots are taking over! THE END IS NIGH!
That's what you guys always sound like. You have no perspective! Try talking to people in their 60's and older. Get lucky and find someone in their 80's or 90's. They've seen all this crap happen before in one form or another; it always blows over. 50 years ago people led very different lives, did very different jobs. 50 years from now the story will be THE SAME. STOP PANICKING.
I'm not even going to bother answering all your little questions. All I have to say is this: Human beings will NEVER BE OBSOLETE. NEVER. Machines exist to serve HUMANS, not the other way around. There will ALWAYS be things for humans to do. ALWAYS. So stop with your sky-is-falling nonsense.
Do you always believe everything the media tells you? Really? Read my lips: 'Robots' are not going to take everyones jobs. Human beings will not EVER become 'obsolete'. EVERY TIME there is a technological 'revolution' of some sort there are ALWAYS Chicken Littles running around, waving their arms in panic, yelling 'The SKY IS FALLING!!!1! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!1!!' and it never happens. This, too, shall pass. Just keep repeating that to yourself like a mantra, you'll be FINE. In the meantime please brush up on you basic math skills, and you'll see why the government can't hand out a few thousand dollars a month to 300,000,000 citizens ad infinitum, not unless the art of alchemy is resurrected and we can start turning lead into gold, or find a Magic Lamp and ask the Djin inside to grant our wishes.
If the public doesn't care about privacy, well the expectation of privacy will cease to exist.
"For YOU", as the meme goes.
Privacy is not decided by the majority, it is decided by the individual. If you fall prey to the troll/meme that privacy is dead and stop protecting your own, then you only have yourself to blame -- and you're helping perpetuate the troll/meme that social media, government agencies, and law enforcement would have you fall for. Keep protecting your private life from the prying eyes of whoever would pry into it. Even if you're not 100% successful, you'll still have some parts of your life that are yours and yours alone, as it should be. Otherwise, do you not see that you'd be living like a convict in a prison, or an animal on a farm, or like a perpetual child, watched and monitored 24/7/365? That's where things are headed if people don't come back around to the basic truth that 'privacy' is a normal, natural, healthy human need, not a sickness or a sign of criminal activity.
Well, I say your 'argument' is flawed then, because it does not encompass the entire human race, only 'Western countries', which doesn't amount to more than a small fraction of the total human population of the Earth.
This AC is being an AC, but he/she/it isn't completely wrong either. The Internet is becoming increasingly unusable. No matter what precautions you're taking, you're putting yourself at an unknown level of risk just by using it at all. Sadly I don't expect this situation to improve, I expect it to get worse. Even the most egalitarian and benign governments are monitoring the Internet to one extent or another, and personally I don't trust any corporation in any country to obey privacy laws if they think they can get away with it, and if they think there's money to be made from collecting and using your personally identifiable data.
I sincerely doubt there's ever going to be any 'post scarcity' while the human race keeps making babies like our species is in danger of going extinct or something. We're not even in control of our basic urges; how do you expect us to attain a level of civilization that would allow people to never have to work again? We're not anywhere near evolved enough. You don't give people something they have to do, they get bored, then they start causing trouble. For some people 'causing trouble' means starting a war. On a national level it means crime -- crimes of boredom. UBI is for all intents and purposed never going to happen. I wish everyone would just give it up already. Come back in a few thousand more years.
..and yet again we have some idiotic AC who doesn't know how things work. If we reach the point where things are so bad that the U.S. military proper is attacking U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, then all bets are off, the U.S. won't really exist anymore, and likely the whole rest of the world will be going to hell in a handbasket with it, but until then it's illegal for U.S. military to operate in such a way on U.S. soil, any such order would be interpreted correctly as illegal, and would not be followed. In fact they'd side with the citizens against the government.
Please post your silly troll posts elsewhere, like 4chan, where they belong. They're not credible in the least here.
In case you haven't noticed, the vast majority of gun owners are not rich people, and in fact hate rich people, so you're completely and totally wrong.
A 'modern military' isn't a ROBOT that blindly follows orders. If the military is given orders that they interpret as unlawful then they'll do nothing. If the government becomes so thoroughly corrupt, they'll side with the people; you're completely and totally wrong.
There needs to be two things: something like what IBM is developing here, and an 'off' switch that the computer can't override, so the driver can drive normally. I think a sensor in the steering wheel that detects when you've got at least one hand on it would be suffcient for an on-demand 'off' switch, as well as a switch on the dash to put the vehicle in manual drive mode.
..and I'd like to remind you (and them!) that we (U.S. citizens, that is) have guns, and you'll never get rid of them, either, so I'd recommend to them (shitty rich people who think they're better than everyone else and therefore should 'rule' us) that they tread lightly, lest something unfortunate has to occur. Not even a threat, just a simple statement of fact.
Apparently you're so technologically uninformed that you're not aware that this sort of thing can be and is done by automated systems based on automatically collected and analyzed data, and the technology to do so has been around for quite some time now.
Great idea. If the ISPs refuse to sell the information for some half-assed reason then there'll be fireworks.
The entire subject is silly and I'm going make a point of ignoring it from now on.
In every generation there are always people who are predisposed to run around like chickens with their heads cut off proclaiming the sky is falling! But it never does.
What do you think of Protonmail?
If there's no longer going to be any such thing as privacy then email becomes less and less attractive a communication option. The thought of Comcast inserting targeted ads into my private email messages makes my skin crawl. Not sure what can be done about it except to use the Internet as little as possible.
Don't make Bixby angry, mister McGee; you won't like Bixby when it's angry.
Apparently you've never heard the phrase 'get you coming and going': You have to PAY for the speed, and next they'll find some reason why they need to increase your MONTHLY BILL. That way they get more from you up front, and more for all your personal data from their so-called 'partner companies' when they sell you out to them.
I was just going to say.. Microsoft is getting involved with Linux, now AT&T? How much longer, do you all think, before there are enough big, nosy, control-freak corporate entities involved with Linux, to subvert it into just another spyware/malware platform like Windows? At some point I'm sure they'd manage to do away with this silly inconvenient 'open source' nonsense, seeing as how they'll have invested all the time and money and manpower into it, right?
So, when Linux is fully owned and subverted, what will the next 'free open source' operating system be called?
I think aside from one-liner cheap-shots I'll just save my sense of humor for people I actually know; too many idiots on the Internets who are total buzzkills, taking something that was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek and turning it into some big, grave debate about the Fate Of The World. Why so serious, Slashdot? Nothing we say or do here has any impact whatsoever on the course things are going to take; it's not much more than entertainment, really.
Also, this: It's not going to be anywhere near as bad as way too many people THINK it's going to be. Replace the word 'robots' or 'AI' (which isn't even the right term for the technology, damnit!) with $SOMETHING_ELSE_FROM_THE_PAST, and you see this has all happened before and guess what, we're all still here, the sky didn't fall, humanity went on -- and that's exactly what'll happen THIS time, too.
Too long, didn't read version: You're all being VERY silly about this. Lighten the heck up, you knuckleheads.
So let me get this straight: You think in the next 15 to 20 years, we'll have:
:-)
* Robotic wife
* Robotic kids
Is that correct? So is what you're saying is that you want to fuck a machine every night, and have faux offspring?
I think, rather than that unlikely scenario, one of two or three things has happened here:
1. You just didn't read every single word
2. You have no sense of humor, whatsoever
3. You're just looking to start a fight by way of being obtuse
How about you lighten up, buddy? You're harshing my mellow.
For the benefit of the rest of the studio audience who Just Don't Get It: I'm lampooning all these sky-is-falling-everybody-panic pseudo-news stories about 'robots taking everyone's jobs'. Chuckle at it or not, your choice; have a nice day.