Whether Babbage believed the Turk was real is irrelevant to whether the idea stimulated his imagination. The history of AI is littered with fraudulent and exaggerated claims, but the state of the art moves on
Russia seems to have contributed to the misinformation over Brexit which, regardless of what happens next, certainly seems destined to destabilise the UK and possibly the EU for years to come. They may also have been a decisive factor in Trump's election as US president, though their contribution is difficult to separate from other factors. It is not surprising that state actors see similar attempts as an interesting way of trying to achieve their foreign policy goals.
Yes, the satellite can be reprogrammed within certain limits, but it cannot be changed into a weather data collection or a mapping satellite just by doing some reprogramming. That will need to wait for a satellite with general purpose 3D printing and robot manufacturing built in, as well as uploadable software. I suspect that is not on the immediate horizon.
Indeed. The problem is that the billionaires hate the idea of anyone getting "something for nothing" when they could put further millions in their own bank accounts.
It would be possible to shoot down the drones. I am sure that would be the chosen approach in the US. However, in the UK, authorities are reluctant to shoot live ammunition into the air over heavily populated areas. They place high priority on preventing unnecessary loss of life.
I am curious as to why this would have driven marine animals to extinction without having a similar effect on terrestrial animals. I would want this explained before giving this theory any credence.
There is corruption in China, for sure, though there have been attempts to rein it in in recent years. Also, I agree there is plenty of questionable science coming from Chinese institutions, though I suspect there is at least as much coming from Western start-ups looking for funding.
With all the issues, China should not be underestimated. A country does not achieve sustained rapid growth and improvement in living standards over 30 years without doing a lot right. Those at the highest levels of government have made good decisions more often than in most of its competitors.
China actually scares me, partly because of its success. They believe they should again be the dominant force in Asia as they were centuries ago. Increasingly, they are going to be in a position to seize what they believe they are entitled to. That is not good for other countries in the region.
China is a meritocracy with tight media control. First, they know the importance of scientific development. Second, they have no need to politicise science to reward rich donors who help elect presidents and congresscritters as in the US.
I have long believed that a space elevator is unlikely to be feasible, unless under the auspices of an international body with no nation exerting control. It is really difficult to see how it could be protected in time of war, or even when the US, say, wanted to engineer an "accident" that removed China's, say, major economic and strategic advantage.
This is not an area I know much about, but the numbers quoted seem screwy to me. How does 167.4 GPa (167,400,000,000 Pa) / 101,325 Pa (by my calculations 1,652,110) come out as 61,000,000?
I do not think they are claiming anything of the sort. They are saying that, as alternative theories become less likely, there is more reason to believe the Standard Model could be correct.
I have some sympathy for your skepticism, but this one does seem real. They are not talking about lab experiments. They are actually building full scale production facilities. I do not think they would be doing this to manufacture vaporware.
Let's look at what this statistic really implies. The chance of reaching 115 is already (with current medical science) extremely low. The very, very few who make it that far have a 50% chance of dying each year. On that basis, fewer than one in a thousand will live to the age of 125 (1 in 2**10). So, yes, it is conceivable, but so unlikely that it will likely never really happen.
They claim to have stopped reading mail for ad purposes, but they're still scanning our mail.
Well, I do not think they claim to be able to do spam filtering without browsing the content of messages. I, for one, consider that acceptable. Is this qualitatively different?
I am also a bit concerned about nudges. They could be super annoying, but I will wait to see how they work in practice. If they end up being good at identifying messages that really do need follow up, distinguishing those we ignored deliberately, it could be a valuable feature.
The corruption in both parties is a fact. That does not mean there are no people of principle in politics. Actually, many act ethically as individuals, but their principles come into conflict with realism. They are not willing to pay the political cost of calling out bad behavior by the perpetrators we both can see. The "good guys" are aware that open opposition to the agenda of their leaderships represents the ends of their careers.
I am not suggesting that Democrats and Republicans should agree on policy issues. What I am talking about is a bipartisan denunciation of things that are a threat to democracy. Very important, pervasive deliberate lying should not be acceptable, and (even more important) attempts to bring pressure to bear on law enforcement for political motives should be roundly denounced. Now both parties are doing it, perhaps there are some in both parties who feel the survival of US democracy is more important than short term political advantage.
Up until now, the Democrats have generally behaved properly in respect of the Russia investigation, leaving the interference and unwarranted attacks on law enforcement to the White House and the Republicans. However, I was distressed to read about this.
It is totally inappropriate to engage in this kind of political theater while Mueller's investigation is ongoing. When Trump and the Republicans are lying and attempting to interfere, by all means denounce their actions forcefully. However, lowering yourself to their level just feeds into the narrative that all politicians are the same, and they are all unprincipled conmen. It makes it harder to defend the institutions that are under attack.
I really believe if a small group of 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans in Congress could come together to denounce all anti-democratic activities, and pledge to act together in the country's best interests, they would do themselves and the country a great deal of good. The silent majority would applaud them. I am not holding my breath. I appreciate, by the way, that acting ethically here is more difficult for the Republicans as their administration has a lot to lose. However, I think that they could present their actions as heroic and vastly enhance their personal reputations in the process.
The action was found to be unprofitable in German courts, largely because it is less time consuming and costly to oppose these kinds of legal shakedown attempts there. Also, if you win in the German courts, you will typically have your legal costs paid. There is still a very real danger that someone could successfully do something like this in the US. There, someone resisting the legal blackmail, is never going to get reimbursement of their costs in winning the case (which in the US, unlike in Germany, can be a fortune) after years of litigation.
With respect, I do not think you have any conception of the developments of the last few years. For example, Generative Adversarial Networks, and especially the Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networks of the last 18 months or so, have really revolutionized the field. If you believe this just to be a tweak of the algorithms of 20, 30 or 40 years ago, you are simply wrong.
Where there is lots of data, and clearly defined objectives, AI systems based on deep neural networks and reinforcement learning can usually at least equal human performance (often surpass it) today. However, this is only narrow AI. Allowing AI systems to deal with less well defined objectives, and being able to use experience in other domains to guide behavior in novel domains where limited data is available, will need further breakthroughs. It is difficult to say how long this will take, but recent progress in AI (as well as the resources going into research) mean it could happen faster than most people think. What AI systems can already do today was thought a long term aspiration as recently as 5-10 years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Whether Babbage believed the Turk was real is irrelevant to whether the idea stimulated his imagination. The history of AI is littered with fraudulent and exaggerated claims, but the state of the art moves on
Does anyone know why infrared detectors are not used to locate people and animals by self driving cars?
Russia seems to have contributed to the misinformation over Brexit which, regardless of what happens next, certainly seems destined to destabilise the UK and possibly the EU for years to come. They may also have been a decisive factor in Trump's election as US president, though their contribution is difficult to separate from other factors. It is not surprising that state actors see similar attempts as an interesting way of trying to achieve their foreign policy goals.
If so, this seems like Nobel Prize for Physics worthy, as well as having the potential to make some people extremely wealthy.
Yes, the satellite can be reprogrammed within certain limits, but it cannot be changed into a weather data collection or a mapping satellite just by doing some reprogramming. That will need to wait for a satellite with general purpose 3D printing and robot manufacturing built in, as well as uploadable software. I suspect that is not on the immediate horizon.
Indeed. The problem is that the billionaires hate the idea of anyone getting "something for nothing" when they could put further millions in their own bank accounts.
That is not a universal opinion. See this explanation.
It would be possible to shoot down the drones. I am sure that would be the chosen approach in the US. However, in the UK, authorities are reluctant to shoot live ammunition into the air over heavily populated areas. They place high priority on preventing unnecessary loss of life.
I am curious as to why this would have driven marine animals to extinction without having a similar effect on terrestrial animals. I would want this explained before giving this theory any credence.
There is corruption in China, for sure, though there have been attempts to rein it in in recent years. Also, I agree there is plenty of questionable science coming from Chinese institutions, though I suspect there is at least as much coming from Western start-ups looking for funding.
With all the issues, China should not be underestimated. A country does not achieve sustained rapid growth and improvement in living standards over 30 years without doing a lot right. Those at the highest levels of government have made good decisions more often than in most of its competitors.
China actually scares me, partly because of its success. They believe they should again be the dominant force in Asia as they were centuries ago. Increasingly, they are going to be in a position to seize what they believe they are entitled to. That is not good for other countries in the region.
China is a meritocracy with tight media control. First, they know the importance of scientific development. Second, they have no need to politicise science to reward rich donors who help elect presidents and congresscritters as in the US.
... now be known as the Starship Enterprise?
I have long believed that a space elevator is unlikely to be feasible, unless under the auspices of an international body with no nation exerting control. It is really difficult to see how it could be protected in time of war, or even when the US, say, wanted to engineer an "accident" that removed China's, say, major economic and strategic advantage.
This is not an area I know much about, but the numbers quoted seem screwy to me. How does 167.4 GPa (167,400,000,000 Pa) / 101,325 Pa (by my calculations 1,652,110) come out as 61,000,000?
I do not think they are claiming anything of the sort. They are saying that, as alternative theories become less likely, there is more reason to believe the Standard Model could be correct.
I have some sympathy for your skepticism, but this one does seem real. They are not talking about lab experiments. They are actually building full scale production facilities. I do not think they would be doing this to manufacture vaporware.
Let's look at what this statistic really implies. The chance of reaching 115 is already (with current medical science) extremely low. The very, very few who make it that far have a 50% chance of dying each year. On that basis, fewer than one in a thousand will live to the age of 125 (1 in 2**10). So, yes, it is conceivable, but so unlikely that it will likely never really happen.
Well, I do not think they claim to be able to do spam filtering without browsing the content of messages. I, for one, consider that acceptable. Is this qualitatively different?
I am also a bit concerned about nudges. They could be super annoying, but I will wait to see how they work in practice. If they end up being good at identifying messages that really do need follow up, distinguishing those we ignored deliberately, it could be a valuable feature.
The corruption in both parties is a fact. That does not mean there are no people of principle in politics. Actually, many act ethically as individuals, but their principles come into conflict with realism. They are not willing to pay the political cost of calling out bad behavior by the perpetrators we both can see. The "good guys" are aware that open opposition to the agenda of their leaderships represents the ends of their careers.
I am not suggesting that Democrats and Republicans should agree on policy issues. What I am talking about is a bipartisan denunciation of things that are a threat to democracy. Very important, pervasive deliberate lying should not be acceptable, and (even more important) attempts to bring pressure to bear on law enforcement for political motives should be roundly denounced. Now both parties are doing it, perhaps there are some in both parties who feel the survival of US democracy is more important than short term political advantage.
Up until now, the Democrats have generally behaved properly in respect of the Russia investigation, leaving the interference and unwarranted attacks on law enforcement to the White House and the Republicans. However, I was distressed to read about this.
It is totally inappropriate to engage in this kind of political theater while Mueller's investigation is ongoing. When Trump and the Republicans are lying and attempting to interfere, by all means denounce their actions forcefully. However, lowering yourself to their level just feeds into the narrative that all politicians are the same, and they are all unprincipled conmen. It makes it harder to defend the institutions that are under attack.
I really believe if a small group of 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans in Congress could come together to denounce all anti-democratic activities, and pledge to act together in the country's best interests, they would do themselves and the country a great deal of good. The silent majority would applaud them. I am not holding my breath. I appreciate, by the way, that acting ethically here is more difficult for the Republicans as their administration has a lot to lose. However, I think that they could present their actions as heroic and vastly enhance their personal reputations in the process.
The action was found to be unprofitable in German courts, largely because it is less time consuming and costly to oppose these kinds of legal shakedown attempts there. Also, if you win in the German courts, you will typically have your legal costs paid. There is still a very real danger that someone could successfully do something like this in the US. There, someone resisting the legal blackmail, is never going to get reimbursement of their costs in winning the case (which in the US, unlike in Germany, can be a fortune) after years of litigation.
With respect, I do not think you have any conception of the developments of the last few years. For example, Generative Adversarial Networks, and especially the Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networks of the last 18 months or so, have really revolutionized the field. If you believe this just to be a tweak of the algorithms of 20, 30 or 40 years ago, you are simply wrong.
Where there is lots of data, and clearly defined objectives, AI systems based on deep neural networks and reinforcement learning can usually at least equal human performance (often surpass it) today. However, this is only narrow AI. Allowing AI systems to deal with less well defined objectives, and being able to use experience in other domains to guide behavior in novel domains where limited data is available, will need further breakthroughs. It is difficult to say how long this will take, but recent progress in AI (as well as the resources going into research) mean it could happen faster than most people think. What AI systems can already do today was thought a long term aspiration as recently as 5-10 years ago.