It's fairly obvious why military vets are a bad choice for the likes of Google. Google depends on independent thinking, on employees questioning everything that they are doing and trying out new things on their own. But military vets have been conditioned to follow orders, period. It's the complete opposite.
The "follow orders" idea is more applicable to enlisted rather than officers. The focus of the military has always been accomplish "the mission." Certain jobs like pure R&D don't lend themselves to this approach since there is no clear "mission." However, most work in the development & implementation stages would fall in this category.
Red is a longer wavelength (700nm vs blue 450), human eyes are more sensitive to blue light than red, and peak response shifts to shorter wavelengths at night.
We can detail the lawsuits ad nausea, but my point is that anyone that was a healthy partner with MS has done to their industry what MS did to software. Like that or not, it is true. In the end, we have Mr Gates to thank for this, no matter how philanthropic he may try to be these days. I wonder sometimes how far exactly he has set the human race back from what will eventually, and necessarily be.
MS is a good example of how standards arise out of a competitive marketplace. I remember the insanity of the PC marketplace in the 80's - Commodore, Tandy, Amiga, Mac, Apple II, etc. All different hardware with their own DOS implementation, and an insane minefield of compatible/incompatible software. Out of that maelstrom x86-MSDOS became the defacto standard, the customers proved themselves king.
Open standards are indeed the ONLY way to create technology and advancement that will last and actually advance mankind in a direction that betters all of us.
Open standards are just one way to create technology, and not necessarily the most efficient - Look how long 802.11n has been sitting unfinished. That method of technology advancement works fine for incremenatal evolutionary changes, but disruptive technology just does not lend iteself to industry committees. Real revolutionary advancement doesn't happen by committee, it happens because somebody decides to take a risk and do something different. Such technological shifts do lead to incompatibility, but it's a small price to pay to break out of the grasp of entrenched powers.
Fighting against the 'right thing to do' for the sake of money is not in the best interests of the community, and in the end, it hurts your business.
It'd be nice if everybody knew what the "right thing to do" was, but it's not always clear. Get 10 industry leaders in a room and they will likely have a different view of the "right thing" than millions of customers.
Why on earth would the "brain in the box" need to move around?
Flood, fire, overheating, broken power lines - Take the kid gloves off and make the "brain in the box" exist in the real world and discover a whole host of new needs.
If they all pump this data back to some collective mind then that should easily satisfy any data requirements it has. Why these AI's of the Singularity need to resemble us in any way is beyond me.
Not necessarily humans, an AI might resemble insects with a hive mentality. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution has led to some pretty good systems for survival on earth.
the Singularity is not just about improving computers' metacognition until they become aware, but also augmenting ourselves. We can be the self-improving 'artificial' intelligences.
I agree, and as I mention elsewhere I think we already are. Humans have been recursively improving their collective "intelligence" by building a large database of information, as well as adding more computing cores with population growth.
We're going round-and-round on this, I think mostly because I wasn't clear on what I envisioned an autonomous chess playing robot to be. Basically remove all the artificial environmental barriers we place and have the system function. Right now I see robotics finally getting out of the script phase. Where actions are based on pre-programmed scripts with limited inputs. Essentially it would be like having a computer "play" an historic game. We are nowhere near the point where you can place a system in front of an arbitrary board and have it figure out all the things we typically pre-program (arm motion, pick up, recognition). Throw in the complexities of low light conditions, or movement (eg playing chess on a train) and they problems become much more complex. As I mentioned elsewhere, humans have been very good at controlling the conditions machines work in, once those restrictions are removed, computers won't enjoy the same playgound.
If you drop the standardized chess board requirement it gets harder again, now we're in territory where even human players have a harder time playing the game (hence the reason for Staunton), but most of the previous rules still apply.
That's kinda the point. A truly autonomous system should be able to play anywhere with any equipment. A human chess player can play in the sand with rocks and sea shells as equipment.
An SMT P&P tool is a good example of how machines work really well in a clinically tight controlled environment. Change the surface finish on the board and watch your tool cry out when it can't find the fiducials; or enjoy the fun of putting a really thick PCB without telling the tool (and disabling all the safeguards) and have the placement nozzles crash. SMT components are amazingly easily to pick up since they have flat areas perfect for a vaccuum nozzle to grab hold of, fed off of reels with carefully controlled distances between parts, and simple package characteristics for alignment. As I mentioned in a response to another poster, for an autonomous machine the level of image acquisition, processing, and spacial computation is far beyond anything we have today.
I was an SMT process engineer for 4 years in CPU manufacturing, though never worked on the Fuji's.
a decent "chess vision" algorithm should have relatively little trouble inferring what the pieces are etc. Similarly, good robotics coupled with a good 3D world model should take care of moving the pieces relatively easily.
I disagree. Most vision systems I've seen use very specific models to compare images to. A decent "chess vision" system would need to on it's own create 3D models by examining the pieces and interpret what those models are. The computer would have to be able to capture images of the board in near real-time to be able to determine when the opponent moved, and how it moved. It would also need sufficient accuracy in image acquisition, interpretation, and AI to determine where exactly the robotic arm needs to grab the piece without having it slip or tilt - that is an enormous task of physics simulation. Next is realtime spacial awareness, the system would have to create a 3D model of the board, pieces, and the robotic arm in space, and compute distances & movements for pick up and placement all without hitting other pieces, accidently dropping the piece above the board, or pushing the piece through the board.
It requires an intelligence capable of enhancing itself in a recursive fashion, but this could in principle be achieved in a number of ways.
I would argue this already exists. If you look at humans as a single social entity, since the start of specialization & trade, human intelligence has enhanced itself recursively.
I don't think it's necessarily dumb extrapolation, but I do think not all the variables are included. AI's exist in a perfectly designed environment, they have humans feed them power & data and all they need to do is process. At some point computers will need to interact with the environment, it is then that everything will slow down, and probably take a step backwards. Massive amounts of processing power will have to get reassigned to tasks currently taken for granted, like acquiring data. Imagine the size of big blue if it had to actually see the board and physically move the pieces.
You don't make the case for going to war when you are already in a war.
You don't think the US would have to make a case if it went to war with N. Korea?
Very few presidents have gone out of their way to put American soldiers in harms way when the real threat to the US or our allies was difficult to ascertain at best, and those that have are villified in history despite whatever greatness they might have done otherwise.
Pretty much all the presidents during the 19th century put American soldiers in harms way in the name of Manifest Destiny. Once the west was conquered troops were again placed in harms way to make the US into a global power with the Spanish-American War. Then limited war under the guise of defending freedom in the second half of the 20th century. Go through the list of US Conflicts and I challenge you to argue more than half were in the interest of protecting the US itself. What was the difference between "Operation Just Cause" and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" other than how many resources are needed? Heck, just compare it to the Banana Wars the Marines even use the same book, all that's changed is that instead of fruit the US fights for oil. Economic & military domination to preserve an expansionary agenda has been the standard for 200 years. And to not just pick on the US, but European powers are also involved in such warfare - France and Britain still have military conflicts with former colonies, not to mention the times when the countries organize under the banner of NATO or the UN to participate in conflicts.
I would argue that during a CIVIL war domestic spying is nearly unavoidable.
Spying is one thing, shutting down the media and throwing citizens of the north in jail without cause is another. Lincoln is the template Bush was fashioned after - a president who treats the Constitution as a set of suggestions. If the south had won Lincoln would have not been seen as the Great Emancipator, he would be the president that ignored the Constitution and destroyed the Union.
The real problem isn't that many past presidents would have been impeached by this persons guidelines, rather, that future presidents will not be held accountable because of your logic.
My point is that real change, whether positive or negative, seldom comes about within strict interpretation of the law.
The real problem isn't that many past presidents would have been impeached by this persons guidelines, rather, that future presidents will not be held accountable because of your logic.
Future presidents will do the same thing, pragmatic manipulation of the law and let time be their judge. Transgressions get discovered after the fact, and it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, especially if the results are "positive." The point is there is nothing new to see here.
You're probably right, but let's say by some miracle a stable government is established in Iraq, and somehow moderates the region... all his transgressions will be ignored. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, shut down newspapers, ordered attacks on civilians in the South, broke treaties, and had generals broadcasting their desire to commit warcrimes. Yet it's largely ignored because he helped free the slaves. FDR restructured the economy to suit banking interests, put Japanese in internment camps, and spied on Americans. Yet he is revered for putting Americans to work and winning the war. Founders of the US were tea smugglers, Reagan lied to the government about illegal wars, Kennedy got into power with the help of mob ties and bootlegging profits. Those who achieve powers are never saints, and history judges results above all else. Bush's legacy will be tarnished not because he broke the Constitution, but that he failed in accomplishing anything.
Yes, wired promoted using meth by saying it causes "Parkinson's-like symptoms, addiction, stroke, psychosis, prison, death" and "Prolonged use can also make you stupid and crazy.".
How dare they make it look so cool and sexy!
Damn straight. Ever since I started taking meth, I totally fit in with the cool guys down at the retirement home.
There is a massive, taxpayer funded multi-media campaign from the U.S. federal government that has for many years taught a large fraction of the public a series of messages about drugs that are just plain false.
At least give a good example of the media campaign I know I'll never use drugs... see money well spent
You basically made my point - Ghandi & MLK outright broke the law to get their point across. Following the law doesn't lead to change, either good or bad.
These people realize that peace can become viral, and if they are charismatic enough, they can start persuading people to give up force as a form of politics. Those who rely on force fear these people more than anyone else. Ghandi was such a person, as was MLK. Look what happened to them.
Not to diminish their importance, but non-violent movements were mirrored with violent subgroups. Naturally those in power preferred to deal with the non-violent activists rather than the extremists. The threat of violence looming in the shadows was a powerful motivator for change.
well, it's the difference between an MBA making a business call based on cost/profit analysis and an experienced chip designer looking at the actual risks involved....
Smart engineers may not have a complete view of the risks involved either. Who's to say the chip designers' hubris didn't get in the way such that they gave a wrong risk assessment. I've seen design groups who have worked on the same architecture for generations fail miserably when they attempt something different.
MBAs are good in cutting corners in traditional businesses, but generally have no understanding of technology risks....
A good MBA doesn't cut corners, they look at the whole picture and identify excess or improvements. It's the difference between an MBA from the University of Chicago and the University of Phoenix - not all MBAs are created equal.
having a company make $1300 per second profit is disgusting
You shouldn't look at profit in absolute terms, gouging should be based on margins. Oil companies get a lower return than Google. Now the health care industry, those are the ones who are disgusting.
Slashdot Mirror
Red is a longer wavelength (700nm vs blue 450), human eyes are more sensitive to blue light than red, and peak response shifts to shorter wavelengths at night.
Open standards are just one way to create technology, and not necessarily the most efficient - Look how long 802.11n has been sitting unfinished. That method of technology advancement works fine for incremenatal evolutionary changes, but disruptive technology just does not lend iteself to industry committees. Real revolutionary advancement doesn't happen by committee, it happens because somebody decides to take a risk and do something different. Such technological shifts do lead to incompatibility, but it's a small price to pay to break out of the grasp of entrenched powers.
It'd be nice if everybody knew what the "right thing to do" was, but it's not always clear. Get 10 industry leaders in a room and they will likely have a different view of the "right thing" than millions of customers.
Not necessarily humans, an AI might resemble insects with a hive mentality. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution has led to some pretty good systems for survival on earth.
Humans have been recursively improving their collective "intelligence" by building a large database of information, as well as adding more computing cores with population growth.
We're going round-and-round on this, I think mostly because I wasn't clear on what I envisioned an autonomous chess playing robot to be. Basically remove all the artificial environmental barriers we place and have the system function.
Right now I see robotics finally getting out of the script phase. Where actions are based on pre-programmed scripts with limited inputs. Essentially it would be like having a computer "play" an historic game.
We are nowhere near the point where you can place a system in front of an arbitrary board and have it figure out all the things we typically pre-program (arm motion, pick up, recognition). Throw in the complexities of low light conditions, or movement (eg playing chess on a train) and they problems become much more complex.
As I mentioned elsewhere, humans have been very good at controlling the conditions machines work in, once those restrictions are removed, computers won't enjoy the same playgound.
Now move the board left 2 inches, tilt a corner up slightly, turn down the lights, use different style pieces...
An SMT P&P tool is a good example of how machines work really well in a clinically tight controlled environment.
Change the surface finish on the board and watch your tool cry out when it can't find the fiducials; or enjoy the fun of putting a really thick PCB without telling the tool (and disabling all the safeguards) and have the placement nozzles crash. SMT components are amazingly easily to pick up since they have flat areas perfect for a vaccuum nozzle to grab hold of, fed off of reels with carefully controlled distances between parts, and simple package characteristics for alignment.
As I mentioned in a response to another poster, for an autonomous machine the level of image acquisition, processing, and spacial computation is far beyond anything we have today.
I was an SMT process engineer for 4 years in CPU manufacturing, though never worked on the Fuji's.
A decent "chess vision" system would need to on it's own create 3D models by examining the pieces and interpret what those models are. The computer would have to be able to capture images of the board in near real-time to be able to determine when the opponent moved, and how it moved. It would also need sufficient accuracy in image acquisition, interpretation, and AI to determine where exactly the robotic arm needs to grab the piece without having it slip or tilt - that is an enormous task of physics simulation. Next is realtime spacial awareness, the system would have to create a 3D model of the board, pieces, and the robotic arm in space, and compute distances & movements for pick up and placement all without hitting other pieces, accidently dropping the piece above the board, or pushing the piece through the board.
I don't think it's necessarily dumb extrapolation, but I do think not all the variables are included.
AI's exist in a perfectly designed environment, they have humans feed them power & data and all they need to do is process. At some point computers will need to interact with the environment, it is then that everything will slow down, and probably take a step backwards.
Massive amounts of processing power will have to get reassigned to tasks currently taken for granted, like acquiring data. Imagine the size of big blue if it had to actually see the board and physically move the pieces.
What was the difference between "Operation Just Cause" and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" other than how many resources are needed? Heck, just compare it to the Banana Wars the Marines even use the same book, all that's changed is that instead of fruit the US fights for oil.
Economic & military domination to preserve an expansionary agenda has been the standard for 200 years.
And to not just pick on the US, but European powers are also involved in such warfare - France and Britain still have military conflicts with former colonies, not to mention the times when the countries organize under the banner of NATO or the UN to participate in conflicts.
Spying is one thing, shutting down the media and throwing citizens of the north in jail without cause is another. Lincoln is the template Bush was fashioned after - a president who treats the Constitution as a set of suggestions. If the south had won Lincoln would have not been seen as the Great Emancipator, he would be the president that ignored the Constitution and destroyed the Union.
Future presidents will do the same thing, pragmatic manipulation of the law and let time be their judge. Transgressions get discovered after the fact, and it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, especially if the results are "positive."
The point is there is nothing new to see here.
No the solution is to spin around really fast... like a pig on a spit
You're probably right, but let's say by some miracle a stable government is established in Iraq, and somehow moderates the region... all his transgressions will be ignored.
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, shut down newspapers, ordered attacks on civilians in the South, broke treaties, and had generals broadcasting their desire to commit warcrimes. Yet it's largely ignored because he helped free the slaves. FDR restructured the economy to suit banking interests, put Japanese in internment camps, and spied on Americans. Yet he is revered for putting Americans to work and winning the war.
Founders of the US were tea smugglers, Reagan lied to the government about illegal wars, Kennedy got into power with the help of mob ties and bootlegging profits.
Those who achieve powers are never saints, and history judges results above all else. Bush's legacy will be tarnished not because he broke the Constitution, but that he failed in accomplishing anything.
I know I'll never use drugs... see money well spent
Not to diminish their importance, but non-violent movements were mirrored with violent subgroups. Naturally those in power preferred to deal with the non-violent activists rather than the extremists. The threat of violence looming in the shadows was a powerful motivator for change.
My dose of cynicism for the day
A good MBA doesn't cut corners, they look at the whole picture and identify excess or improvements. It's the difference between an MBA from the University of Chicago and the University of Phoenix - not all MBAs are created equal.