With enough incentive, Singapore has the monetary, technological, and cognitive resources to get to the bottom of this . . . . and a criminal justice system that is anything but forgiving.
Most other military organizations don't talk much about scientific breakthroughs that they are either working on or have actually made, certainly not unless they have to. How odd that China's military should be so open and aboveboard about things you would think they would rather keep quiet. Is this the same country that's trying so hard to keep its people from the internet, and that has even been known to crack down on people using words like "emigration," and names like "Winnie-the-Pooh?"
Nobody ever came out and said, "Please pass a law so I can be forced to stop doing something I shouldn't be doing," no, it's always, "Please pass a law to force them to stop doing something that I don't like." - Robert A. Heinlein
Never is an absolute, Use absolutes and you are almost certainly wrong. In this case, it makes you sound like someone scoffing at the Wright brothers. That last ten percent will come along sooner or later, probably sooner, but that won't be the end of it either. It will keep getting even better so long as there is any economic incentive for it to do so.
Plumbers, at least those that work in non-factory built structures (i.e. those not mass-produced and standardized) may just be the ones to hold their jobs longer than anyone else, other than tort attorneys and politicians.
" . . . in our driverless future, we all need to pitch in and unload our own groceries." At least until Mr. Roboto, some future Asimo, is ready to take over that little chore. Of course, he's probably going to expect a tip. Come to that, this delivery cart might want one, too.
Why does it feel like the good senators might not be taking so much interest in this if it were just two million people that got misrepresented, not two million people plus two senators.
Lost me at ET. Life probably, but life we can communicate with? Not completely and absolutely impossible, of course, but for those who really want to plug in some updated numbers for Drake's Equation, the odds are not looking good these days. There are a lot of stars, granted, but the number is finite and the conditions we need for multi-cellular life are complex and rare and the chance for each has to be multiplied by all the others. Science generally trumps faith, at least when it comes to scientific matters, so don't be calling people fools for not sharing your faith, please.
Most cautionary tales show an oppressed collective of AIs rising up to take down abusive humans. We tend to forget there are any number of works of fiction where humans become emotionally connected to their robot or android. Star Wars, Iron Giant, Brave Little Toaster, Silent Running, Bicentennial Man, AI, 2010: Odyssey 2, Transformers, Wall-E, Johnny Five, I Robot, Robots, Blade Runner, Lost in Space, and even the Tinman in The Wizard of OZ! Works of fiction these may be, but the fact that they exist, and in such numbers, is pretty indicative that, even before robots are ready to hold up their end of that kind of emotional connection, many of them will already be on the receiving end of one. If they are well made then treating them much as we do our own children should serve to make them members of our society. Even adopted children don't usually try to overthrow or kill their parents. On a related note, most of us have had bosses that were not as smart as we were and yet we (hopefully) never tried to kill them, or put them in a people zoo.
Sure hope it's not like my car and always starts on cold mornings. Then too, be just my luck someone would leave the headlights on all night and drain the battery.
So if the the motto is "Don't be evil," and helping America's military is against the motto, then the military is evil and, by extension, especially since it is an all volunteer force, everyone in the military is evil?
Is this really what these disgruntled employees want to be telling everyone (including their boss?)
I'm a shareholder of Google and I disapprove of these lackawit employees. How many folks we got lined up who want their jobs?
I'm not a prude but I'm never going to buy one, Why can't I just set my Amazon user profile so they never offer them to me?
Of course, romance books are almost as bad. A romance with a spaceship in it is not science fiction, it's just a subcategory of romance. A romance where the heroine using Celtic magic to transport herself back and forth to her lover in ancient Scotland is not fantasy, it is just a subcategory of romance. Romances with private investigators in them (notice how I didn't use the slang term for a detective to get a cheap laugh?) are still romances.
Tired of all the romances clogging up my searches (and the top 100 lists) for books I want to read. Maybe Amazon just needs a way to let us filter out covers with hairless male torsos on them?
Not to oversimplify (which is what any "solution" that involved classifying AI would be), most of the sample problems posed, other than the Minority Report government, would be best addressed by more AI. In fact, a somewhat toned down version of the Minority Report scenario probably is the solution. Some years ago, Stephen Hawking asked how we could survive another century of our own technology. He suggested getting off planet, but the solution for the rest of us is that we can eventually expect to be watched, every man, woman, child, and even AI, by other AIs. Is Will Knight buying too much nitrogen fertilizer in too short a time period? Some AI that is an expert on Will Knight will start to wonder why that is, since he has only a few potted plants on his balcony and they don't look much greener than usual. As usual with learning systems, these AIs will get better, to the point where they seldom raise a flag unless there really is a problem. Privacy? Some will argue that no privacy is violated because the AIs only bring things to human attention when there is probable cause. That's still anathema to a lot of us, but it won't be stoppable unless, possibly, you agree to go live in an "off-the-grid" reservation where only very basic levels of technology are permitted.
"astrophysics, geology, exoplanet science, planetary science, chemistry and various subfields of biology"
This much is true as, to get to anything like something we might actually have a shot at communicating with, there are a great many requirements in each of these categories, and several more as well (cosmology , anthropology, and statistics amongst them).
Indeed, when one multiplies the likelihood of just the requirements we currently know about by each other, one might come to the conclusion that, even with ten trillion galaxies, and even if they have one hundred billion stars each, we are astronomically unlikely to ever need an astrobiologist for anything other than, possibly, alien bacteria and viruses.
So far as IT goes, I can say this highlights a very unfortunate trend. There is now an expectation that highly skilled workers in a very specific discipline are available to come out of the woodwork when they are called, that they will be grateful for whatever they can get, and then will quietly slink away to try to find and compete for an opportunity to work somewhere else.
We are not talking about salaried contractors hired through a contracting firm, or about the traditional contract jobs of yore, where a self-employed contractor could expect to get the big bucks and make more than enough to carry them through the gaps until their next gig, swapping the job security for financial remuneration. The expectation now is that they will take these jobs, many paying no more than what is comparable for full-time employees (and with no benefits), and like it.
In general, unless the remuneration is high enough to offset many other factors (such as the uncertainties and income insecurity, lack of benefits, and the lack of employer provided training) these contract engagements should only be taken as last resort. They tend to be bad economic choices for the worker in the same way that "rent-to-own" is a bad way to furnish your home.
Slashdot Mirror
With enough incentive, Singapore has the monetary, technological, and cognitive resources to get to the bottom of this . . . . and a criminal justice system that is anything but forgiving.
Most other military organizations don't talk much about scientific breakthroughs that they are either working on or have actually made, certainly not unless they have to. How odd that China's military should be so open and aboveboard about things you would think they would rather keep quiet. Is this the same country that's trying so hard to keep its people from the internet, and that has even been known to crack down on people using words like "emigration," and names like "Winnie-the-Pooh?"
Nobody ever came out and said, "Please pass a law so I can be forced to stop doing something I shouldn't be doing," no, it's always, "Please pass a law to force them to stop doing something that I don't like." - Robert A. Heinlein
Mine works great, wouldn't be without it (several of them, actually).
Never is an absolute, Use absolutes and you are almost certainly wrong. In this case, it makes you sound like someone scoffing at the Wright brothers. That last ten percent will come along sooner or later, probably sooner, but that won't be the end of it either. It will keep getting even better so long as there is any economic incentive for it to do so.
Plumbers, at least those that work in non-factory built structures (i.e. those not mass-produced and standardized) may just be the ones to hold their jobs longer than anyone else, other than tort attorneys and politicians.
" . . . in our driverless future, we all need to pitch in and unload our own groceries." At least until Mr. Roboto, some future Asimo, is ready to take over that little chore. Of course, he's probably going to expect a tip. Come to that, this delivery cart might want one, too.
Maybe they should go after the ISPs first. Even Google gets slapped around by them.
Why does it feel like the good senators might not be taking so much interest in this if it were just two million people that got misrepresented, not two million people plus two senators.
Lost me at ET. Life probably, but life we can communicate with? Not completely and absolutely impossible, of course, but for those who really want to plug in some updated numbers for Drake's Equation, the odds are not looking good these days. There are a lot of stars, granted, but the number is finite and the conditions we need for multi-cellular life are complex and rare and the chance for each has to be multiplied by all the others. Science generally trumps faith, at least when it comes to scientific matters, so don't be calling people fools for not sharing your faith, please.
Most cautionary tales show an oppressed collective of AIs rising up to take down abusive humans. We tend to forget there are any number of works of fiction where humans become emotionally connected to their robot or android. Star Wars, Iron Giant, Brave Little Toaster, Silent Running, Bicentennial Man, AI, 2010: Odyssey 2, Transformers, Wall-E, Johnny Five, I Robot, Robots, Blade Runner, Lost in Space, and even the Tinman in The Wizard of OZ! Works of fiction these may be, but the fact that they exist, and in such numbers, is pretty indicative that, even before robots are ready to hold up their end of that kind of emotional connection, many of them will already be on the receiving end of one. If they are well made then treating them much as we do our own children should serve to make them members of our society. Even adopted children don't usually try to overthrow or kill their parents. On a related note, most of us have had bosses that were not as smart as we were and yet we (hopefully) never tried to kill them, or put them in a people zoo.
Sure hope it's not like my car and always starts on cold mornings. Then too, be just my luck someone would leave the headlights on all night and drain the battery.
So if the the motto is "Don't be evil," and helping America's military is against the motto, then the military is evil and, by extension, especially since it is an all volunteer force, everyone in the military is evil? Is this really what these disgruntled employees want to be telling everyone (including their boss?) I'm a shareholder of Google and I disapprove of these lackawit employees. How many folks we got lined up who want their jobs?
Looks like maybe the aliens in that galaxy figured out dark matter was really a fuel source (a la Futurama) and went and burnt it all up.
I'm not a prude but I'm never going to buy one, Why can't I just set my Amazon user profile so they never offer them to me? Of course, romance books are almost as bad. A romance with a spaceship in it is not science fiction, it's just a subcategory of romance. A romance where the heroine using Celtic magic to transport herself back and forth to her lover in ancient Scotland is not fantasy, it is just a subcategory of romance. Romances with private investigators in them (notice how I didn't use the slang term for a detective to get a cheap laugh?) are still romances. Tired of all the romances clogging up my searches (and the top 100 lists) for books I want to read. Maybe Amazon just needs a way to let us filter out covers with hairless male torsos on them?
Not to oversimplify (which is what any "solution" that involved classifying AI would be), most of the sample problems posed, other than the Minority Report government, would be best addressed by more AI. In fact, a somewhat toned down version of the Minority Report scenario probably is the solution. Some years ago, Stephen Hawking asked how we could survive another century of our own technology. He suggested getting off planet, but the solution for the rest of us is that we can eventually expect to be watched, every man, woman, child, and even AI, by other AIs. Is Will Knight buying too much nitrogen fertilizer in too short a time period? Some AI that is an expert on Will Knight will start to wonder why that is, since he has only a few potted plants on his balcony and they don't look much greener than usual. As usual with learning systems, these AIs will get better, to the point where they seldom raise a flag unless there really is a problem. Privacy? Some will argue that no privacy is violated because the AIs only bring things to human attention when there is probable cause. That's still anathema to a lot of us, but it won't be stoppable unless, possibly, you agree to go live in an "off-the-grid" reservation where only very basic levels of technology are permitted.
"astrophysics, geology, exoplanet science, planetary science, chemistry and various subfields of biology" This much is true as, to get to anything like something we might actually have a shot at communicating with, there are a great many requirements in each of these categories, and several more as well (cosmology , anthropology, and statistics amongst them). Indeed, when one multiplies the likelihood of just the requirements we currently know about by each other, one might come to the conclusion that, even with ten trillion galaxies, and even if they have one hundred billion stars each, we are astronomically unlikely to ever need an astrobiologist for anything other than, possibly, alien bacteria and viruses.
So far as IT goes, I can say this highlights a very unfortunate trend. There is now an expectation that highly skilled workers in a very specific discipline are available to come out of the woodwork when they are called, that they will be grateful for whatever they can get, and then will quietly slink away to try to find and compete for an opportunity to work somewhere else. We are not talking about salaried contractors hired through a contracting firm, or about the traditional contract jobs of yore, where a self-employed contractor could expect to get the big bucks and make more than enough to carry them through the gaps until their next gig, swapping the job security for financial remuneration. The expectation now is that they will take these jobs, many paying no more than what is comparable for full-time employees (and with no benefits), and like it. In general, unless the remuneration is high enough to offset many other factors (such as the uncertainties and income insecurity, lack of benefits, and the lack of employer provided training) these contract engagements should only be taken as last resort. They tend to be bad economic choices for the worker in the same way that "rent-to-own" is a bad way to furnish your home.