If so they're in for a bit of a surprise when they discover that their adverts ubiquitous portrayal of empty roads, driving wherever, at whatever speed and it's all just tickety-boo is one big lie that'd make even the Marlboro Man's death stick purveyors blush.
Seriously though, I think we're at a juncture were we need to understand very quickly what they're being lined up for with self-driving cars by the car/auto lobby. For while it's likely that the number of accidents will go down. It's also true, all else being equal, that the number of car journey will increase. Is there anyone outside of the auto lobby that thinks, yep, what we need is more car journeys. That'll help with the obesity crisis, pollution and global warming. Really?
So obviously, given the likely outcome of their endeavours what do we think these companies are going to do about it. Is it going to be a) Create policies that attempt to humanise their technology, reduce environmental damage and generally make life better for everyone including non-car owners/users. Or b), keep making vast amounts of money at whatever the cost to society and the planet? How well do we think our legislatures are prepared for this?
Appleâ(TM)s biggest hits havenâ(TM)t been when theyâ(TM)ve been first to the market but when theyâ(TM)ve been âoebestâ. MP3 players, smart phones and tablet computers; all existed before Apple made billions from them. All existed before Apple spotted the opportunity to create a tightly integrated solution that looked good and worked well for _most_ people. I donâ(TM)t know if they can pull off the same trick with streaming, but the world plus dog piling into it, fractured nature of the streaming market is reminiscent to me of the MP3 market prior to the iPodâ(TM)s arrival, so maybe...
1) Speech on its own is not the best user interface for some tasks. 2) Interoperability stinks both on hardware and software basis. Try finding switches that work with Alexa and Siri. Apps on Alexa that donâ(TM)t need you to ask âoefooâ to do such and such. 3) How can you make a living from it? Until they properly figure that out, itâ(TM)s difficult to see it getting proper traction.
So here we are in the 21st century. We have well surfaced but increasing crowded roads, powerful fast cars, and yet the only thing stopping a driver breaking the law is the driver's self-control. Because we all know how reliable an individuals self-control is. So we end up with speed being a significant factor in the majority of road traffic accidents, increased pollution and noise. It discourages active transport, children playing outside and generally makes everyone's lives, other than the speeder's, hell. Yet, we are told by the lying automotive industry whose advertising budget is the largest in the world (and never features a congested road or children dying of asthma because of their cars) that it would infringe on their users' rights. FFS, what are car drivers, some sort of over indulged royalty who can do what the hell they want to the rest of us. What about the rights of those of us who are being killed daily by their badly driven legacy tin boxes? Are we a less important people because we are not in a tin box? Even gun enthusiasts think safety catches are a good thing. So isn't it about time our governments stood up for us and mandated that no vehicle is sold that doesn't at least by default respect speed limits?
Their society has rules and if a citizen abides by the rules they progress. If you do not you will be crushed. If you wish to change the rules, then you work within the system to make it happen. In short, state governance operates much like how a company works. Witness the pace of change in China; it can be far more efficient than a multi-party Western democracy.
Only time will tell if it is a better than a Western democracy. However, it's hard to imagine at the moment that any Westerners, Europeans with their Muslim terrorists and Americans with their mass shootings and the like, are really in any position to lecture the Chinese on dystopian futures.
Two companies involved with the pollution and destruction of our planet. If Stuxnet can target Iranian centrifuges perhaps we're seeing the start of a new type of anti-oil activism?
And who is going to pay to access the resources that these robots will be mining, or using to create power?
Is it likely that China, source of most Rare Earth elements is ever going to give them to the USA for free? The USA the Wheat that it produces to China, Russia and Iran? The Australian or Canadians their Uranium or to the French, Iranians, Syrians etc?
While we (humans) are the ones in control, there is no "World Government" and resources are finite, then it seems like a safe bet that those who control access to the resources will always want payment above just the labour and infrastructure costs.
Doesn't it seem likely that robots are going to continue to need energy and raw materials to do their thing, whatever it is even creating new robots? Is it likely that those providing the energy and raw materials also going to be giving their resources away free?
What system is going to cost less and would most people prefer to use?
One where when a weakness, or a more accurate, "finger print" * technology is discovered all existing users have to access the system using the potentially comprised existing encoding technology and record new training data.
One where whilst any update processes is underway, both the old and new systems have to be operated and developed concurrently.
Or one where admins can run a script using the original voice recordings and update the "finger print" models and recognition process overnight, turn off the old and deploy the new system in the morning.
Minor quibble, keeping the original recordings is actually reasonable foresight, as it it allows subsequent re-coding of the "fingerprints" when technology improves. Other than that an excellent appraisal of the situation; I'm suspecting inside information;-)
It's easy to say it's a matter of freedom; those roads are open to anyone to drive them so why is Waze being pilloried for routing people over them.
However, think about it for a moment longer.
As, with speeding and the march of speed cameras, road humps etc. We know the slow IRL infrastructure response will be to no-through signs, blocked up roads and similar restrictions. In the meantime though, the unfortunate neighborhood that this has this inflicted on them suffer.
Neighborhoods, that were formerly quiet and safe for their inhabitants become noisy, polluted and unsafe. All ultimately for nothing.
In the end, no matter how many $$$'s the car lobby spends on marketing its unsustainable public health disaster transport policy. It will, like cigarettes, be found out. Life is not about cars and building roads over anything worth visiting; it's about giving people somewhere that is not shit to live.
Waze and the auto lobby are seeking to screw the majority of us for a bit longer to keep their business model going. They want us to trade the destruction of our neighborhoods and damage to our health so that they can make a profit.
Now, ask yourself this. Who do you think will be picking the $$$ bill for this pile of short-term shit? Is it going to be Waze and the lobby? Or is going to be the general public?
So really, is getting Waze to alter its software such a bad technical solution?
I think your focus on your users' domain is admirable. Eventually though, in any fast evolving field of engineering it's worth asking what the consequences of ignoring technology stack evolution are? Is it going to make development faster, or slower? is that going to make the product more competitive of less?
I was in a similar situation to the author. My experience though is that it is a balance. Sure customers will love, possibly even hero worship the developer and their new features and would really prefer they did nothing but that. They will keep on loving them right up to the point where the developer neglects their stack for too long and someone comes along with something based on new technology that looks better to them. In my opinion for a developer to remain relevant it important to at least annually survey the stack and plan to adopt any new technology that appears to deliver significant improvements.
Code fingerprinting for license compliance is very possible. Have a look at the BlackDuck Hub product https://www.blackducksoftware....; there are others who offer similar services. Their back-end was a heap of non-scaling, my-first-code-project junk but the basic scanning tech worked quite well.
It'd be a pita, and the idea of EU slowly transforming into another China or Russia in an attempt to stop the extremists its policies are creating is pretty unappealing. But they could make it happen if they were determined/stupid enough.
Within the industry these projects are viewed both as a means to educate and also as a tool to keep the existing incumbents (ARM, Intel etc) "honest". If the incumbents screw up, or get too greedy, then it's known that there are many other businesses with both Open Source track records and the ability to assemble the necessary resources to eat (at least part of) the incumbents lunches. They know this and the potential challengers know this.
Up to now it's not really happened, but is it so inconceivable that in the future someone like Google might not fall out with the incumbents? decide instead to create their own designs maybe because they wanted to further differentiate their phones, servers, switches etc? maybe because at their scale they've calculated it'd be cheaper?
So as a non-musician if I was trying to explain why a particular piece of music was brilliant would my first thoughts really be that the best thing I could do would be to attempt to sing or hum it to the unlucky victim? Similarly, as someone who is neither a physicist or educator should I really think that I might be the best person to explain Special Relativity and its consequences? Instead, might it not be a better approach to work through one or two existing high quality resources with them?
I'm sure there are others, but in terms of a recommendation I found the Cox and Forshaw book "Why Does E=mc^2 (And Why Should We Care?)" https://www.goodreads.com/book... good. I also think it could possibly be something that a bright 9 yr old might enjoy reading and understanding with their dad.
There is some evidence suggesting that as a species we are on average becoming more stupid https://www.livescience.com/37.... Would it be that much of a surprise if a less intelligent species found simpler music more attractive?
As to sad and angry, well, at a grand scale is there anything much for our species to feel particularly chipper about?
Music reflects the times people live in and we've got a lot of things that need fixing - best get started!!!
Good I hope they take the planet destroying a*holes to the cleaners. That industry has known since 1959 when that left wing loon Edward Teller told them that their product was likely to lead to climate change https://www.theguardian.com/en... and by implication millions of deaths and the destruction of large parts of the planet. Their response - carry on selling the poison.
Slashdot Mirror
If so they're in for a bit of a surprise when they discover that their adverts ubiquitous portrayal of empty roads, driving wherever, at whatever speed and it's all just tickety-boo is one big lie that'd make even the Marlboro Man's death stick purveyors blush.
Seriously though, I think we're at a juncture were we need to understand very quickly what they're being lined up for with self-driving cars by the car/auto lobby. For while it's likely that the number of accidents will go down. It's also true, all else being equal, that the number of car journey will increase. Is there anyone outside of the auto lobby that thinks, yep, what we need is more car journeys. That'll help with the obesity crisis, pollution and global warming. Really?
So obviously, given the likely outcome of their endeavours what do we think these companies are going to do about it. Is it going to be a) Create policies that attempt to humanise their technology, reduce environmental damage and generally make life better for everyone including non-car owners/users. Or b), keep making vast amounts of money at whatever the cost to society and the planet? How well do we think our legislatures are prepared for this?
Appleâ(TM)s biggest hits havenâ(TM)t been when theyâ(TM)ve been first to the market but when theyâ(TM)ve been âoebestâ. MP3 players, smart phones and tablet computers; all existed before Apple made billions from them. All existed before Apple spotted the opportunity to create a tightly integrated solution that looked good and worked well for _most_ people. I donâ(TM)t know if they can pull off the same trick with streaming, but the world plus dog piling into it, fractured nature of the streaming market is reminiscent to me of the MP3 market prior to the iPodâ(TM)s arrival, so maybe ...
1) Speech on its own is not the best user interface for some tasks.
2) Interoperability stinks both on hardware and software basis. Try finding switches that work with Alexa and Siri. Apps on Alexa that donâ(TM)t need you to ask âoefooâ to do such and such.
3) How can you make a living from it? Until they properly figure that out, itâ(TM)s difficult to see it getting proper traction.
So here we are in the 21st century. We have well surfaced but increasing crowded roads, powerful fast cars, and yet the only thing stopping a driver breaking the law is the driver's self-control. Because we all know how reliable an individuals self-control is. So we end up with speed being a significant factor in the majority of road traffic accidents, increased pollution and noise. It discourages active transport, children playing outside and generally makes everyone's lives, other than the speeder's, hell. Yet, we are told by the lying automotive industry whose advertising budget is the largest in the world (and never features a congested road or children dying of asthma because of their cars) that it would infringe on their users' rights. FFS, what are car drivers, some sort of over indulged royalty who can do what the hell they want to the rest of us. What about the rights of those of us who are being killed daily by their badly driven legacy tin boxes? Are we a less important people because we are not in a tin box? Even gun enthusiasts think safety catches are a good thing. So isn't it about time our governments stood up for us and mandated that no vehicle is sold that doesn't at least by default respect speed limits?
Their society has rules and if a citizen abides by the rules they progress. If you do not you will be crushed. If you wish to change the rules, then you work within the system to make it happen. In short, state governance operates much like how a company works. Witness the pace of change in China; it can be far more efficient than a multi-party Western democracy.
Only time will tell if it is a better than a Western democracy. However, it's hard to imagine at the moment that any Westerners, Europeans with their Muslim terrorists and Americans with their mass shootings and the like, are really in any position to lecture the Chinese on dystopian futures.
Two companies involved with the pollution and destruction of our planet. If Stuxnet can target Iranian centrifuges perhaps we're seeing the start of a new type of anti-oil activism?
And who is going to pay to access the resources that these robots will be mining, or using to create power?
Is it likely that China, source of most Rare Earth elements is ever going to give them to the USA for free? The USA the Wheat that it produces to China, Russia and Iran? The Australian or Canadians their Uranium or to the French, Iranians, Syrians etc?
While we (humans) are the ones in control, there is no "World Government" and resources are finite, then it seems like a safe bet that those who control access to the resources will always want payment above just the labour and infrastructure costs.
Doesn't it seem likely that robots are going to continue to need energy and raw materials to do their thing, whatever it is even creating new robots? Is it likely that those providing the energy and raw materials also going to be giving their resources away free?
What system is going to cost less and would most people prefer to use?
One where when a weakness, or a more accurate, "finger print" * technology is discovered all existing users have to access the system using the potentially comprised existing encoding technology and record new training data.
One where whilst any update processes is underway, both the old and new systems have to be operated and developed concurrently.
Or one where admins can run a script using the original voice recordings and update the "finger print" models and recognition process overnight, turn off the old and deploy the new system in the morning.
* "finger print" == speaker recognition feature
Minor quibble, keeping the original recordings is actually reasonable foresight, as it it allows subsequent re-coding of the "fingerprints" when technology improves. Other than that an excellent appraisal of the situation; I'm suspecting inside information ;-)
It's easy to say it's a matter of freedom; those roads are open to anyone to drive them so why is Waze being pilloried for routing people over them.
However, think about it for a moment longer.
As, with speeding and the march of speed cameras, road humps etc. We know the slow IRL infrastructure response will be to no-through signs, blocked up roads and similar restrictions. In the meantime though, the unfortunate neighborhood that this has this inflicted on them suffer.
Neighborhoods, that were formerly quiet and safe for their inhabitants become noisy, polluted and unsafe. All ultimately for nothing.
In the end, no matter how many $$$'s the car lobby spends on marketing its unsustainable public health disaster transport policy. It will, like cigarettes, be found out. Life is not about cars and building roads over anything worth visiting; it's about giving people somewhere that is not shit to live.
Waze and the auto lobby are seeking to screw the majority of us for a bit longer to keep their business model going. They want us to trade the destruction of our neighborhoods and damage to our health so that they can make a profit.
Now, ask yourself this. Who do you think will be picking the $$$ bill for this pile of short-term shit? Is it going to be Waze and the lobby? Or is going to be the general public?
So really, is getting Waze to alter its software such a bad technical solution?
I think your focus on your users' domain is admirable. Eventually though, in any fast evolving field of engineering it's worth asking what the consequences of ignoring technology stack evolution are? Is it going to make development faster, or slower? is that going to make the product more competitive of less?
I was in a similar situation to the author. My experience though is that it is a balance. Sure customers will love, possibly even hero worship the developer and their new features and would really prefer they did nothing but that. They will keep on loving them right up to the point where the developer neglects their stack for too long and someone comes along with something based on new technology that looks better to them. In my opinion for a developer to remain relevant it important to at least annually survey the stack and plan to adopt any new technology that appears to deliver significant improvements.
Code fingerprinting for license compliance is very possible. Have a look at the BlackDuck Hub product https://www.blackducksoftware....; there are others who offer similar services. Their back-end was a heap of non-scaling, my-first-code-project junk but the basic scanning tech worked quite well.
It'd be a pita, and the idea of EU slowly transforming into another China or Russia in an attempt to stop the extremists its policies are creating is pretty unappealing. But they could make it happen if they were determined/stupid enough.
I'd not be so sure.
Within the industry these projects are viewed both as a means to educate and also as a tool to keep the existing incumbents (ARM, Intel etc) "honest". If the incumbents screw up, or get too greedy, then it's known that there are many other businesses with both Open Source track records and the ability to assemble the necessary resources to eat (at least part of) the incumbents lunches. They know this and the potential challengers know this.
Up to now it's not really happened, but is it so inconceivable that in the future someone like Google might not fall out with the incumbents? decide instead to create their own designs maybe because they wanted to further differentiate their phones, servers, switches etc? maybe because at their scale they've calculated it'd be cheaper?
So as a non-musician if I was trying to explain why a particular piece of music was brilliant would my first thoughts really be that the best thing I could do would be to attempt to sing or hum it to the unlucky victim? Similarly, as someone who is neither a physicist or educator should I really think that I might be the best person to explain Special Relativity and its consequences? Instead, might it not be a better approach to work through one or two existing high quality resources with them?
I'm sure there are others, but in terms of a recommendation I found the Cox and Forshaw book "Why Does E=mc^2 (And Why Should We Care?)" https://www.goodreads.com/book... good. I also think it could possibly be something that a bright 9 yr old might enjoy reading and understanding with their dad.
There is some evidence suggesting that as a species we are on average becoming more stupid https://www.livescience.com/37.... Would it be that much of a surprise if a less intelligent species found simpler music more attractive?
As to sad and angry, well, at a grand scale is there anything much for our species to feel particularly chipper about?
Music reflects the times people live in and we've got a lot of things that need fixing - best get started!!!
Good I hope they take the planet destroying a*holes to the cleaners. That industry has known since 1959 when that left wing loon Edward Teller told them that their product was likely to lead to climate change https://www.theguardian.com/en... and by implication millions of deaths and the destruction of large parts of the planet. Their response - carry on selling the poison.
What he actually says is on average. Average doesn't imply all women or for that matter even most women https://twitter.com/sentientis...