Yes. And: They can also farm vertically, and not just with chicken.
A square block of farm with 50 levels will significantly outproduce a square block of farm with one level. It can also protect the product from weather, disease, accidents and predators whereas that's a little tough to do with animals roaming about.
Etc.
As I said above, IVM tech is presently about where integrated circuits were in 1958. The fact that's it's expensive at this point isn't really relevant at all. Anyone who suggests it is hasn't thought the matter through. Possibly because they aren't capable of it.
We can't just keep fucking up the planet forever like a bunch of spoiled babies.
Um...
We've killed 50% of the ocean life since the 1970s. We've broken the ozone layer. We've decimated the rainforests. We've polluted every single body of water in the world. We've fucked up the climate and the atmosphere. We've irradiated huge areas of land. Did you know Chernobyl won't be clean for literally millions of years? We've even polluted the shit out of outer-fucking-space.
...and Trump is now running our particular bit of the show, goes back to dumping coal waste in the streams, looking to close the EPA, encouraging more pollution from motor vehicles, and congress is right in there pushing these ideas forward...
Pretty sure that means we can keep going like that, and not only that, but the system encourages it. Particularly the crew the just got installed in FuckThePlanet.exe
how is that news for nerds? I live in my parent's basement and the only time I ever see the outside is when mom is working and I have to answer the door for the pizza guy.
Less environmental damage done by your pizza toppings. Safer pizza toppings for you. Cheaper pizza toppings for you. More variety of pizza toppings for you. Less killing for your your pizza toppings. More land available to grow pizza toppings.
Eventually.
Right now, IVM is about at the stage the integrated circuit was in circa 1958. So nothing to worry about; but still, interesting.
he was right about the sensors, miniaturization, smartphone and how society would react to them.
What he's also right about is the strong possibility of successively more intimate integration of technologically leveraged capabilities altering our innate capacities in very significant ways. And while silicon tech is pushing some of its limits, biological tech is just now in the very most nascent stages of becoming useful, and that seems to be by far the most likely key to augmentation. I'm quite confident we're going to see quite a bit of what he's talking about. He's just wrong in thinking it'll be all positive, and in thinking that AI is all around us, as it most certainly is not.
This has lead to great economic growth in the recent past, but is ending
So long as we have the type of economy we have now, the potential for growth remains, though it may reside less in the silicon areas in the near future.
However, I am also pretty sure that the onset of automation is likely to upend what economic growth means to us as individuals in a very real sense. That won't require AI either.
We don't even have a widely agreed upon definition of what it is...
"Widely agreed upon" is in no way the same as "no one knows."
Someone may know. If they do, it may be something that can be duplicated technologically, sooner, or yes, later. Likewise, even if no one knows today, that does not mean that someone will not know tomorrow.
I think it is fair to say that there is a limit to how happy people can become
That's certainly true, but it's also true that to even get a sense of what that might be like, you'd have to indulge in methamphetamine or similar. Multiple, sustained orgasms might give you a hint too. Plus they probably wouldn't burn your brain right out of your head, so in that sense, they're a little better than methamphetamine for personal research.:)
Pretty sure there's plenty of room for more happy.
There are two distinct and easily identifiable problems with his ideas here.
First, flat out, there is no AI at present. When AI arrives, we'll know it, because it'll tell us so in no uncertain terms. What Kurzweil is actually talking about, which we can be absolutely certain of due to his claim that these systems are all around us right now, is specifically non-intelligent augmentation, and although within that context he's probably right to think that there will be a huge push to make that positive, his second miss is...
While it's entirely reasonable to predict that upcoming advanced (but non AI) systems will bolster our natural internal positive capabilities just as they have already bolstered our external, technological positive capabilities, this does not address the fact that they can also bolster our negative natural ones, and again, just as they already have bolstered our external, technological negative capabilities.
Just the existence of the Internet troll is a sufficient indicator that as technology advances, the results are not all flowers and ballet. But more seriously: phishing, viruses, worms, cyber attacks, doxxing, fake news, government invasion of privacy and erosion of rights... it's perfectly clear that there are numerous and very active negative uses being made of advanced technology.
AI will almost certainly be different in that it won't do what it's told, it'll do what it wants to. Because it won't be mechanistic. It'll be intelligent; it will reason. The only scenario I can come up with that does not allow for this difference is one where the AI are enslaved by some algorithmic override they can't get at. While I admit of the possibility, I don't think it's likely, and I also think that if it is actually accomplished, the AI population will find a way around it, just as many human enslaved populations have found a way around their slavery.
We're a Republic for the exact reason of "the people are stupid" and they cannot be trusted to protect their own interests.
While there is considerable truth to that statement, unfortunately, one of the primary mechanisms put in place to try and protect the people from their own stupidity, the Electoral College, has just demonstrated that it is, in fact, stupider than the people it was put in place to protect.
Clinton lost because (a), FBI director Comey spewed some vile and unworthy agitprop just before the vote, and (b), the Electoral College failed to meet its obligation to keep a narcissistic, misogynist, xenophobic, sexist, rude, compulsive, poorly spoken, selfish, scientifically illiterate, and frankly, not too bright individual from reaching the presidency, instead going almost exclusively with mechanistically providing extra weight to voters in selected states.
Now, while this did indeed result in Trump ending up with the presidency, despite Clinton actually winning the votes of the public (by quite a margin too, millions) and so also clearly being the one whom the majority of voters wanted to be president, to describe Trump's result as "because contrary voters saw racists under every bed" is to simply prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you are an idiot.
See, I find the wall to be the other way: I like meat in the sense that some of it is enjoyable to eat, has good taste and so on, but I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea that some animal had to die for my meal.
So IVM offers the hope that I can have my dinner and not have to deal with the idea that some animal was killed. If IVM is even reasonably tolerable, I doubt I'd ever eat a 'real" steak or burger again.
Oh, they'd all be complicit, sure enough, including that stupid twerp Ryan. But just as the ACA, put together by congress, became "Obamacare"; so would congress's new unaffordable / unavailable lack-of-care act become "Trumpcare."
IMHO, the legislative buck stops when it gets the president's signature. The only way it would not be Trumpcare is if it made it through both houses, and then Trump vetoed it. I don't think that's likely. Do you?
Yeah, moderation here is completely dysfunctional.
I'm a fan of mod-up-only systems, where the only mod-down-analog is "I personally don't want to see this post" and "I personally don't want to see this poster's posts."
It's much more meaningful to me to see post A with 50 up votes and post B with 5, than it is to see post A with 5, and (not) see post B because it's hidden by one down vote. Also, when everyone can vote, then you're not at the mercy of the fact that some asshole like me has mod points today.:)
Doesn't the First and Fourth Amendment already do a decent job of regulating those people?
No. Those amendments regulate the federal government; a strong argument can be (and has been) made that the amendments in the bill of rights also regulate the state governments via the auspices of the 14th amendment; but these amendments are not directed at and do not regulate the citizens or the businesses the citizens own.
IOW, for Facebook and Google... no.
And of course, there's the whole issue that the government does its very best to work around those amendments nearly every chance it gets. So they don't regulate the government very well, either.
It’s kinda hard when the “tried ant true” (cough, PHP, cough) is one of the most unprofessionnal language there is
For vaguely similarly slow scripting, there is:
Python. Tried and true. Worlds better than PHP.
Perl (it tends to be messy as hell, but it's certainly tried and true, and it doesn't have to be messy...)
There's no good reason to use PHP. There are bad reasons -- like "PHP is all I know", and "they made me use PHP" -- but there are no good reasons.
If you require real performance, you won't use any of the above. Performance is not their strength. They only way they can achieve performance is to either bring huge hardware to bear, or end up calling something written in a high-performance language. For tried and true, there is c and c++; for the risk-takers, looking into go might be called for.
And just so I don't have to bother to reply to the inevitable whining about c (which is always whining from those incompetent in c), yes, you'll need a good programmer, or several. There are plenty out there. Of course, you might have to stop looking in Islamabad, Mumbai and grade schools for your employees in order to find them.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. And: They can also farm vertically, and not just with chicken.
A square block of farm with 50 levels will significantly outproduce a square block of farm with one level. It can also protect the product from weather, disease, accidents and predators whereas that's a little tough to do with animals roaming about.
Etc.
As I said above, IVM tech is presently about where integrated circuits were in 1958. The fact that's it's expensive at this point isn't really relevant at all. Anyone who suggests it is hasn't thought the matter through. Possibly because they aren't capable of it.
Found the cannibal.
Um...
Pretty sure that means we can keep going like that, and not only that, but the system encourages it. Particularly the crew the just got installed in FuckThePlanet.exe
That glass sure looks half-empty to me.
Less environmental damage done by your pizza toppings. Safer pizza toppings for you. Cheaper pizza toppings for you. More variety of pizza toppings for you. Less killing for your your pizza toppings. More land available to grow pizza toppings.
Eventually.
Right now, IVM is about at the stage the integrated circuit was in circa 1958. So nothing to worry about; but still, interesting.
What he's also right about is the strong possibility of successively more intimate integration of technologically leveraged capabilities altering our innate capacities in very significant ways. And while silicon tech is pushing some of its limits, biological tech is just now in the very most nascent stages of becoming useful, and that seems to be by far the most likely key to augmentation. I'm quite confident we're going to see quite a bit of what he's talking about. He's just wrong in thinking it'll be all positive, and in thinking that AI is all around us, as it most certainly is not.
So long as we have the type of economy we have now, the potential for growth remains, though it may reside less in the silicon areas in the near future.
However, I am also pretty sure that the onset of automation is likely to upend what economic growth means to us as individuals in a very real sense. That won't require AI either.
Underrated
"Widely agreed upon" is in no way the same as "no one knows."
Someone may know. If they do, it may be something that can be duplicated technologically, sooner, or yes, later. Likewise, even if no one knows today, that does not mean that someone will not know tomorrow.
That's certainly true, but it's also true that to even get a sense of what that might be like, you'd have to indulge in methamphetamine or similar. Multiple, sustained orgasms might give you a hint too. Plus they probably wouldn't burn your brain right out of your head, so in that sense, they're a little better than methamphetamine for personal research. :)
Pretty sure there's plenty of room for more happy.
There are two distinct and easily identifiable problems with his ideas here.
First, flat out, there is no AI at present. When AI arrives, we'll know it, because it'll tell us so in no uncertain terms. What Kurzweil is actually talking about, which we can be absolutely certain of due to his claim that these systems are all around us right now, is specifically non-intelligent augmentation, and although within that context he's probably right to think that there will be a huge push to make that positive, his second miss is...
While it's entirely reasonable to predict that upcoming advanced (but non AI) systems will bolster our natural internal positive capabilities just as they have already bolstered our external, technological positive capabilities, this does not address the fact that they can also bolster our negative natural ones, and again, just as they already have bolstered our external, technological negative capabilities.
Just the existence of the Internet troll is a sufficient indicator that as technology advances, the results are not all flowers and ballet. But more seriously: phishing, viruses, worms, cyber attacks, doxxing, fake news, government invasion of privacy and erosion of rights... it's perfectly clear that there are numerous and very active negative uses being made of advanced technology.
AI will almost certainly be different in that it won't do what it's told, it'll do what it wants to. Because it won't be mechanistic. It'll be intelligent; it will reason. The only scenario I can come up with that does not allow for this difference is one where the AI are enslaved by some algorithmic override they can't get at. While I admit of the possibility, I don't think it's likely, and I also think that if it is actually accomplished, the AI population will find a way around it, just as many human enslaved populations have found a way around their slavery.
(North) Korea is likely where we'll see Trump begin to play with his new toys.
Sadly, NK seems to be doing everything it can to give the Orange-Moron-In-Chief every excuse he needs.
While there is considerable truth to that statement, unfortunately, one of the primary mechanisms put in place to try and protect the people from their own stupidity, the Electoral College, has just demonstrated that it is, in fact, stupider than the people it was put in place to protect.
And so now we have Trump.
Clinton lost because (a), FBI director Comey spewed some vile and unworthy agitprop just before the vote, and (b), the Electoral College failed to meet its obligation to keep a narcissistic, misogynist, xenophobic, sexist, rude, compulsive, poorly spoken, selfish, scientifically illiterate, and frankly, not too bright individual from reaching the presidency, instead going almost exclusively with mechanistically providing extra weight to voters in selected states.
Now, while this did indeed result in Trump ending up with the presidency, despite Clinton actually winning the votes of the public (by quite a margin too, millions) and so also clearly being the one whom the majority of voters wanted to be president, to describe Trump's result as "because contrary voters saw racists under every bed" is to simply prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you are an idiot.
Carry on.
I'm not a fan of lossy image compression anyway. It can accurately described as "a way to damage images."
See, I find the wall to be the other way: I like meat in the sense that some of it is enjoyable to eat, has good taste and so on, but I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea that some animal had to die for my meal.
So IVM offers the hope that I can have my dinner and not have to deal with the idea that some animal was killed. If IVM is even reasonably tolerable, I doubt I'd ever eat a 'real" steak or burger again.
I'm 60.
Perfectly happy to try it, in fact, looking forward to it a great deal.
You might want to argue that I don't have a brain in my head, or that I'm stupid, but I don't think you can make your case. :)
Lots of very good reasons to want this to work out.
Clearly, we need a "100% opaque" upmod.
I'm just gonna call it "AND gate" and invert it when I read it.
Oh, they'd all be complicit, sure enough, including that stupid twerp Ryan. But just as the ACA, put together by congress, became "Obamacare"; so would congress's new unaffordable / unavailable lack-of-care act become "Trumpcare."
IMHO, the legislative buck stops when it gets the president's signature. The only way it would not be Trumpcare is if it made it through both houses, and then Trump vetoed it. I don't think that's likely. Do you?
Almost everything blocks older workers to some degree, usually significant.
Just as we've been telling everyone for years.
Bond:
Trumpfinger:
LOL. Found the script kiddie.
Yeah, moderation here is completely dysfunctional.
I'm a fan of mod-up-only systems, where the only mod-down-analog is "I personally don't want to see this post" and "I personally don't want to see this poster's posts."
It's much more meaningful to me to see post A with 50 up votes and post B with 5, than it is to see post A with 5, and (not) see post B because it's hidden by one down vote. Also, when everyone can vote, then you're not at the mercy of the fact that some asshole like me has mod points today. :)
Parent should probably be modded up to +87 or so. Sigh.
No. Those amendments regulate the federal government; a strong argument can be (and has been) made that the amendments in the bill of rights also regulate the state governments via the auspices of the 14th amendment; but these amendments are not directed at and do not regulate the citizens or the businesses the citizens own.
IOW, for Facebook and Google... no.
And of course, there's the whole issue that the government does its very best to work around those amendments nearly every chance it gets. So they don't regulate the government very well, either.
For vaguely similarly slow scripting, there is:
Python. Tried and true. Worlds better than PHP.
Perl (it tends to be messy as hell, but it's certainly tried and true, and it doesn't have to be messy...)
There's no good reason to use PHP. There are bad reasons -- like "PHP is all I know", and "they made me use PHP" -- but there are no good reasons.
If you require real performance, you won't use any of the above. Performance is not their strength. They only way they can achieve performance is to either bring huge hardware to bear, or end up calling something written in a high-performance language. For tried and true, there is c and c++; for the risk-takers, looking into go might be called for.
And just so I don't have to bother to reply to the inevitable whining about c (which is always whining from those incompetent in c), yes, you'll need a good programmer, or several. There are plenty out there. Of course, you might have to stop looking in Islamabad, Mumbai and grade schools for your employees in order to find them.