No, what we have to get rid of is high numbers. All those transactions involved high numbers. Forbid any number beyond one million, and we are safe. Also, the national debt problem will be solved as well, because the debt will be reduced to one million at maximum, because there's simply no higher number.
Even better, demand C unsigned semantics. Too much dept? Well, just add some more, so you wrap back to zero.
For example drug money can wreck havoc with local housing markets when people who have large sums of money drive the cost of housing beyond the reach of more honest citizens.
I think America just demonstrated that you don't need drug money to wreck havoc with local housing markets.
I thought I was going to see a significant movement in the ice sheets, on the order of 10's or 100's of miles. From what I saw, the rate of decline was statistically meaningless, measured in mere feet. My guess is the previous administration was more concerned with releasing something that would show or capabilities of our spy satellites and not trying to conceal this.
If they sold paper copies of books where the publisher didn't have the publishing rights, would they come to every customer who bought the book and take it away?
It's easy to sell food at a very high price to people who are starving, because they just need food. However a computer isn't essential for life, so you won't buy one unless you already can spare the money to do so. Also, stealing computers only makes sense if you can undercut the price tag it is normally sold. But since the price the people would get it at would be zero (AFAIU the model is that the government buys them), it would be very hard to undercut it. Therefore it would not make a good target for stealing.
The only exception could be stealing and then selling in the first world. But then, I don't think the market for stolen XOs would be large enough to make that profitable.
Is there also data relating the CO2 level in the atmosphere with the CO2 output by human activities? That is, can we prove that the CO2 level raised due to human CO2 output, and not due to a natural process (maybe one caused by rising temperatures)?
Actually this is exactly how Mozilla worked. Except they had the third option of "accept temporary" so you could say "OK I'm not yet sure whether to trust that site, but I know that this time I'll not submit and data anyway."
I didn't say paper isn't useful at all. Indeed if you look further, you'll see that I stated in another post, that I myself use it a lot: It's just easier to do certain calculations on paper than on the computer (those calculations involve formulas, and while there are computer algebra systems - and I indeed use one, too - sometimes it's just more work to get the CAS to get the formula into a "mind-compatible" form than to just do it by hand).
My comment was specifically on the case presented here, the need to write on paper due to longevity.
A self-winding watch will help you nothing if you don't move any more, as is quite common for dead people. And of course, in afterlife you'll only have watches which also died, so clocks that last longer are decidedly a disadvantage in that case. Batteries should be no problem in afterlife, because batteries die, too.
I'm an Engineer, and my logbook must be kept for 6 years after my death for legal reasons. If all goes well, that'll be in 70+ years. It is unlikely at best that anything written on a computer will be readable in that time frame.
Well, there's a device known as printer. Any reason why you cannot use that?
No, Asimov's laws were simple, unflexible rules. What I'm speaking about is (an emulation of) emotions, something which doesn't get directly into the reasoning, but into the evaluation of the results. Something which governs the behaviour at a much more basic level. Something unintelligent which may overrule logic. Yes, the robots would be irrational in their passion of serving us. They would be irrational in trying to prevent harm from us even if their advanced logic tells them that's wrong. But that's the point. Logic cannot protect us. The protection must come from an independent system, and that system must be simple enough.
Ideally there should be another choice: 3) send the dumb ones back to school.
We all know that is not going to happen because:
1. they don't wanna go to school in the first place
That's not really a problem: Most of them don't like to do the jobs they do either. But they do them anyway, because they need the money.
Make schools pay money to the people going there (depending on how well they do), and the people will go to school and learn. OK, there's the problem of where that money should come from. Well, simple: From those who profit from having more well-educated people around.
2. the educational system in its current state is not economically viable for these people (nor the society actually footing the bill)
Fix it. Yes, I know that's easier said than done:-)
3. like any parasite, they will get together and lobby for free handouts while opposing progress, like they have always done (churches, exclusive communities, 3rd world expats)
A computer runs on electricity. That means it requires us to stoke the flames.
I guess building machines which can operate the complete electric grid without human intervention, as complicated as it may be, is orders of magnitudes simpler than building true intelligent machines which would be able to take over the world. Since the first type of machines would also be clearly beneficial to us (especially to the grid owners), it's unlikely that an AI powerful enough to take over the world would need us to provide the electricity.
I agree that they would likely not enslave us: Robots would be much more efficient for an AI, just as they are more efficient for us. Unless we are considered a threat for them, the world-ruling machines would probably simply not care about us. If we turned out a thread, they would fight us until we stop being a threat.
Indeed, I'd expecting a world-takeover of the machines not as a singular event, but basically a gradual process: While the machine infrastructure made to serve us becomes more automated and self-regulating, humans gradually lose the ability to influence it (after all, it's working, so why mess with it). Due to self regulation, more and more of the regulatory system will become concerned with keeping the regulatory system itself working. At some time, the original intent (serving the human needs) will be neglected, and the system will just keep itself alive. To reach that step, there needs not even be an AI of the "SF type". Basically the technical infrastructure would be like an organism, and an AI to keep it so need not be more powerful than the brain of a lower animal. Of course as soon as the humans find out that they are not served any more, they will try to correct it, but since they lost the ability to regulate the system (they may not even know the current structure, because restructuring was automated some time ago as well), they will not be very effective. And as soon as they try to control the infrastructure, they will be recognized as danger, and fought (as our immune system will fight illnesses, again not too much intelligence needed). While humans may have the higher intelligence, the mere physical power of the machines will be hard to beat. And the AI will adapt to any attacks the humans do to it.
I'm sure the higher intelligence you have the more ethical you are
I'm not so sure. There have been very intelligent criminals, who certainly haven't been very ethical. Intelligence and ethics are orthogonal. Intelligence helps you to achieve a goal. Ethics tells you which goals you should achieve.
Slashdot Mirror
No, what we have to get rid of is high numbers. All those transactions involved high numbers. Forbid any number beyond one million, and we are safe. Also, the national debt problem will be solved as well, because the debt will be reduced to one million at maximum, because there's simply no higher number.
Even better, demand C unsigned semantics. Too much dept? Well, just add some more, so you wrap back to zero.
I think America just demonstrated that you don't need drug money to wreck havoc with local housing markets.
I thought I was going to see a significant movement in the ice sheets, on the order of 10's or 100's of miles. From what I saw, the rate of decline was statistically meaningless, measured in mere feet. My guess is the previous administration was more concerned with releasing something that would show or capabilities of our spy satellites and not trying to conceal this.
You mean it's declining at a glacial pace?
I don't think dams help very much for national security. They might have helped New Orleans, though.
Well, the DPI setting of the OS neither effects nor affects the actual DPI of the screen, so his statement is obviously correct.
Since the summary and article do not mention it,
1m resolution = One Meter Per Pixel.
That's also assuming that your monitor settings are set to 96DPI.
No. 1 meter per pixel is actually 0.0254dpi
Not to forget those who pirated non-evil content. :-)
So probably it should be four words: used used book store
Does it have an alternate way to get books onto it?
I still can get the content on dead trees. Without DRM.
If they sold paper copies of books where the publisher didn't have the publishing rights, would they come to every customer who bought the book and take it away?
... until they can convince me beyond reasonable doubt that they removed the ability to delete books on their customer's devices.
It's easy to sell food at a very high price to people who are starving, because they just need food. However a computer isn't essential for life, so you won't buy one unless you already can spare the money to do so. Also, stealing computers only makes sense if you can undercut the price tag it is normally sold. But since the price the people would get it at would be zero (AFAIU the model is that the government buys them), it would be very hard to undercut it. Therefore it would not make a good target for stealing.
The only exception could be stealing and then selling in the first world. But then, I don't think the market for stolen XOs would be large enough to make that profitable.
Is there also data relating the CO2 level in the atmosphere with the CO2 output by human activities? That is, can we prove that the CO2 level raised due to human CO2 output, and not due to a natural process (maybe one caused by rising temperatures)?
http://slashdot.org/
Actually this is exactly how Mozilla worked. Except they had the third option of "accept temporary" so you could say "OK I'm not yet sure whether to trust that site, but I know that this time I'll not submit and data anyway."
I didn't say paper isn't useful at all. Indeed if you look further, you'll see that I stated in another post, that I myself use it a lot: It's just easier to do certain calculations on paper than on the computer (those calculations involve formulas, and while there are computer algebra systems - and I indeed use one, too - sometimes it's just more work to get the CAS to get the formula into a "mind-compatible" form than to just do it by hand).
My comment was specifically on the case presented here, the need to write on paper due to longevity.
A self-winding watch will help you nothing if you don't move any more, as is quite common for dead people. And of course, in afterlife you'll only have watches which also died, so clocks that last longer are decidedly a disadvantage in that case. Batteries should be no problem in afterlife, because batteries die, too.
SCNR
Well, I'm actually writing on paper quite frequently. But that's almost exclusively formulas.
I keep my weekly logbook in cursive writing.
I'm an Engineer, and my logbook must be kept for 6 years after my death for legal reasons. If all goes well, that'll be in 70+ years. It is unlikely at best that anything written on a computer will be readable in that time frame.
Well, there's a device known as printer. Any reason why you cannot use that?
So do I. But at the same time I think than an AI powerful enough to need it is at least as far into the future. :-)
No, Asimov's laws were simple, unflexible rules. What I'm speaking about is (an emulation of) emotions, something which doesn't get directly into the reasoning, but into the evaluation of the results. Something which governs the behaviour at a much more basic level. Something unintelligent which may overrule logic. Yes, the robots would be irrational in their passion of serving us. They would be irrational in trying to prevent harm from us even if their advanced logic tells them that's wrong. But that's the point. Logic cannot protect us. The protection must come from an independent system, and that system must be simple enough.
That's not really a problem: Most of them don't like to do the jobs they do either. But they do them anyway, because they need the money.
Make schools pay money to the people going there (depending on how well they do), and the people will go to school and learn. OK, there's the problem of where that money should come from. Well, simple: From those who profit from having more well-educated people around.
Fix it. Yes, I know that's easier said than done :-)
You are not really unbiased, are you?
I guess building machines which can operate the complete electric grid without human intervention, as complicated as it may be, is orders of magnitudes simpler than building true intelligent machines which would be able to take over the world. Since the first type of machines would also be clearly beneficial to us (especially to the grid owners), it's unlikely that an AI powerful enough to take over the world would need us to provide the electricity.
I agree that they would likely not enslave us: Robots would be much more efficient for an AI, just as they are more efficient for us. Unless we are considered a threat for them, the world-ruling machines would probably simply not care about us. If we turned out a thread, they would fight us until we stop being a threat.
Indeed, I'd expecting a world-takeover of the machines not as a singular event, but basically a gradual process: While the machine infrastructure made to serve us becomes more automated and self-regulating, humans gradually lose the ability to influence it (after all, it's working, so why mess with it). Due to self regulation, more and more of the regulatory system will become concerned with keeping the regulatory system itself working. At some time, the original intent (serving the human needs) will be neglected, and the system will just keep itself alive. To reach that step, there needs not even be an AI of the "SF type". Basically the technical infrastructure would be like an organism, and an AI to keep it so need not be more powerful than the brain of a lower animal. Of course as soon as the humans find out that they are not served any more, they will try to correct it, but since they lost the ability to regulate the system (they may not even know the current structure, because restructuring was automated some time ago as well), they will not be very effective. And as soon as they try to control the infrastructure, they will be recognized as danger, and fought (as our immune system will fight illnesses, again not too much intelligence needed). While humans may have the higher intelligence, the mere physical power of the machines will be hard to beat. And the AI will adapt to any attacks the humans do to it.
Well, at least it could give a nice SF plot :-)
I'm not so sure. There have been very intelligent criminals, who certainly haven't been very ethical. Intelligence and ethics are orthogonal. Intelligence helps you to achieve a goal. Ethics tells you which goals you should achieve.