Operating the brakes directly lets it use them in ways a human couldn't possibly do. [...]now the robot gets the same limitation (slow instrument dials etc.) as the human.
How? A human applies a certain pressure to the brake pedal. A skilled driver knows by practice just about how much to apply to begin with. A skilled driver also quickly adjusts that pressure judging by sensory input. A robot would face exactly the same challenge. Granted, a mechanical system would introduce a delay, but then you could just as well make a rule "Computer must not think faster than a human" or more general "Computer must imitate all human shortcomings"
I don't really think this will come to an actual contest, but I for one would prefer a contest where one participant is not predestined to lose.
True, but I doubt it would look like a Steve McQueen movie. Something about the way a swampy 60's-70's american suspension handles a tight corner that they can't reproduce...
Whilst I'm posting, this challenge is pretty much the exact reason why F1 (wrongly IMO) banned all the driver aids for the 1994 season -
Traction Control, ABS, especially Active Suspension, which was the nearest F1 ever came to having a computer co-driver.
A case of technology ruining the sport, perhaps. (or rather ruining the show and thus sponsor income)
Somehow I agree with their desicion, though. Either they state rules to keep it a hight speed show, or skip all rules and start a free-for-all formula. (actually that *would* be cool)
Sort of reminds me of an argument why movie car-chases were so much better in the old days. It was because they used big american cars with hopeless traction and control. They could make a car spin around wildly at 50 km/h and later speed up the film. With a modern car you would have to soap the tires or actually drive as fast as it looks.
How it should be, perhaps
on
Anonymity
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· Score: 2
AC posts something
Plaintiff claims that a posting is defamatory. Either:
Directly to the ISP or...
To a court
In the first case, there is less hassle, but the plaintiff will never have AC's identity (no court order)
Court either throw the case out (end of story) or..
Agrees to try the case against John Doe
ISP (or similar) is informed that a posting is up for court.
ISP must make a reasonable effort to contact AC but has no obligation to disclose any identities yet. ISP may:
Cancel the article at this point if its content is against their terms of service. (whistleblowing AC choose the wrong ISP)
Discuss matters with AC. AC may weasel out (post dropped unless the ISP wants to fight anyway) or provide any additional facts and take the fight. Anonymous or shielded behind the ISP.
Court rules on libel/defamation charge.
AC/ISP wins, Yippie! or
AC loses. His/her identity can be disclosed to the court *unless* ISP's terms of service states that the ISP owns/is responsible for any content on their site.
This would be more like in the newspaper world. A court may order an ISP to reveal a source (unlike with a paper in a civilized country) but the ISP can also assume responsibility for "their" content. (for a prize, like the right to the content or an legal insurance fee)
Same FIA Formula 1 car for both operators
Of course.
Computer must mechanically operate the same controls used by the human;
Why? The extra mechanics involved adds no real difficulty to the computers task. I agree that the computer should not have any extra control over the car, but what advantage does the computer get by issuing the set_brake_level(50); command insted of extend_left_foot(50); ?
Computer must fit in the same space as the human, including power source.
Yes, we want identical cars, but I'd rather state "Computer must be contained in the car. No remote control." That said I'd be equally impressed by a remote control setup as long as all sensors were in the car
Computer can have no electrical connection to vehicle for power or sensors; all its sensors must be self contained, and have no physical extension beyond what is allowed the human (no camera through the floor to follow the line:-)
Same as for the controls. Wether the computer has a direct feed from the cars sensors or points a camera at the dials and does some image processing is not important. What matters is that the computer must not have access to more information about vehicle status than the human.
Computer can have as many hands, legs, arms and eyes as it likes
Yes, but as I said: I prefer a display of AI not robitics.
Computer gets human equivalent sensors only - visible light vision and accelerometers; no radar, sonar, or active illumination allowed.
Hart to tell what is equivalent. A human has stereoscopic vision to measure distances. I think that would be a hard task to match.
Computer controlled car must meet same weight requirements as the human/car combination
Definitely. The question will rather be: Should the human car add ballast to make up for a heavy computer? I don't think it will be very lightweight...
*IF* this ever comes to be, I'd like to scale it down to an AI problem as much as possible, not a robotics/sensor contest. "Can a computer drive a car at 300 km/h?" is a much more interesting question than "Can a robot controlled by that computer operate the car?"
(OK, so sue me. I was
a SF geek long before I ever touched a computer.)
and not the only one, buddy...
But you got your analysis wrong. The third law would never come into effect here, since the robot/car is ordered to race as quickly as possible.
Thus, the second law will override the third and the robot/car will indeed take chances that a (normal) human wouldn't. (well it would slow down sometimes because a crash would mean that it failed to achieve it's objective, not to protect itself)
Fortunately for Shumacher, in every situation involving other cars with human drivers it would *have* to slow down. "cannot risk to fight for positions in this curve, someone might get hurt."
Then again, it might argue that a robot beating the F1 champ somehow would be good for humanity...
Inertial memory? Yes, but since these future vessels hardly uses "normal" accelleration (or everyone would be crushed when the ship entered hyperspace/warp speed) I guess you would need some multidimensional inertia sensor. Intresting thought...
Actually, the typical standstill scenario involves a planet and at least two vessels.
"Captain the alien vessel has halted above the planet"
"Full stop! Hailing frequencies open! Ready with the blasters!"
I interpret this as
"Captain the alien vessel has entered a geostationary orbit around the planet"
"Move our ship into a similar orbit! (a rather complex manouver that severly limits the number of available attack angles on the alien vessel) No coffee breaks at the radio just now damnit! Yeah and the same goes for you blaster guys and please no cowboy stuff this time. I'll tell you when to blast aliens and not"
What fascinates me in both StarWars and Trek is the concept of a complete halt of a starship. When the falcon or the enterprise stands still in space, against what are they measuring their speed?
...and the == true part is a bit redundant too. ...and what language uses both double equal signs and "then"? ... and where are the parentheses? Have they changes operator precedence since "a long time ago"?
if (walk.status && (check_distance() == 0))
walk.stop;
1. If the event hasn't happened yet, people won't buy insurance.
2. As soon as the event happens, the person will go out and buy insurance.
3. As a result, the insurance pool will consist of 100% people that the insurance company has to pay out to. So everyone will have to pay the
full amount. There's no point in handing them 100%*X+admin_fees and then they hand you back 100%*X.
OK I oversimplified a bit. I wrote a more detailed post here
My point, sort of, was that there may be an insurance situation where the event is certain, but the timing unknown. (otherwise I agree with your post)
A standby techie *is* insurance. The premium is the cost of paying someone to stand by. The [insert correct term for what an insurance company pays here] is the cost of having my business standing still while I search for a non-standby techie. (or the cost of my time if I am my own techie)
That said, can you agree to my point that the whole conept of insurance becomes flawed if the risk of a single person is known (as opposed to the statistical risk of any person)?
... and as nore and more risks can be foreseen, the whole concept of personal insurance becomes more and more obsolete. Like another poster pointed out, insurance is like a casino in reverse.
In this casino we all have loaded dice, but we don't know *how* they are loaded. If we did, there would be no need to play since we would know the outcome.
that said I disagree partly with your point about insuracne being only for unknown events. I know with 100% certainty that I will die eventually. I might still want a life insurance because I don't know *when*
If you run a web server, you *know* it will crash [insert Unix/MS comment here] so you might pay for a 24/7 standby techie as a form of insurance.
As long as it's voluntary, then we all win - you can either take the test and get cheaper premiums, or you can not take the test and satisfy your
urge for privacy. It's a win-win situation.
Nope.
There are three possible outcomes here:
You take the test and find out that you are at risk.
You're screwed. Or rather, if the test shows that you have 50% risk of developing the disease, your premium will be increased by (cost of treating disease)*0.50 + X, where X is the insurance companys margin of profit on you.
You take the test and find that you are not at risk.
You'll get a lousy deal. Your premium will be decreased by (cost of treating disease)*(percentage of population who gets the disease) - X, that is, the insurance company will still charge you X£ to cover a disease you now know that you won't get (plus you paid for the test)
You don't take the test.
Your premium will not be affected, at first, but (no decrease) + (sligtly higher annual increase) = (higher premium) You are now pooled in a group where the premium is calculated according to (cost of treating disease)*(population)*(risk of disease)/((population) - (tested and OK)) whereas your personal risk of getting the disease is constant. In other words, you face the same risk, but will have to pay a higher premium to insure yourself against it.
So your best chance is to get tested and find out that you are out of danger. But even then, you will only get part of the insurance companys savings.
Graphic UI shells and applications must become much better at detecting mouse events first, I'm afraid.
How good are todays programs at, say, switching mouse icon when they are supposed to? Not so good that I could rely on the icon to know wether I should click or not.
But let's be optimistic. In the best case, gadgets like these will force UI designers to follow standards more. Less of that "Oh, but surely everyone should realize that they are supposed to right-control-doubleclick *there*" attitude.
*sigh* wouldn't the simplest and possibly best solution to mouse feedback be active mouse buttons? gently pop up the buttons when the pointer is over something intresting. More useful and less annoying thatn a vibrator. And if you want to make a useful blind-aid combine with six pop up dots braille style for text scanning and buttons to lock mouse movement to vertical/horizonal only. (I cant draw a straight line with a mouse and *with* visual feedback.)
Don't really think that the majority of killings is done by people who *really* want to kill someone?
I don't have any statistics to quote here but I think that common sense says that (more difficulties involved in the killing) => (less killings)
I don't think there are many "madmen out to get you at any cost" outside the hollywood world.
There are unfortunately too many people who might wrongfully pull a trigger under stress while the extra effort/time involved in using a knife or a blunt object would have saved the victim
Re:Einstein and the Nobel prize
on
Nobel Prizes
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· Score: 1
The photoelectric effect was indeed damn good work. That, unfortunately, does not affect the fact/rumor that he would have been given the prize for the theory of relativity (too?) if it wasn't for academic pride and politics.
I didn't really mean that they were simply looking for an excuse to give him the prize, but that it was a great relief when they could give him his well deserved award without giving any credit to the theory of relativity.
Re:The mandatory question for all stupid americans
on
Nobel Prizes
·
· Score: 1
No, only the Peace Prize is awarded by a norwegian comitte
Well, isn't that what I said?
Einstein and the Nobel prize
on
Nobel Prizes
·
· Score: 2
The theories of relativity were considered "too radical" by the comittee at the time (or rather, it was an embarrassing case of academic pride)
It was clear, however, that Einstein deserved the prize, so he got it as soon as there was another work (the photoelectric effect) to award it for.
(or so the story goes)
Re:The mandatory question for all stupid americans
on
Nobel Prizes
·
· Score: 2
Was Alfred Nobel swedish, norwegian or simply scandinavian?
Sweden and Norway was in a union from 1814-1905
That is: Norway was under Danish government but was "given" to Sweden (who sought some compensation for the recent (1809) loss of Finland to Russia in 1814.
Nobel was indeed swedish, born in Stockholm 1833 if my memory is correct, but all his life (he died 10 dec 1896, the prizes are given the day of his death) Sweden and Norway was in union.
Now the norwegians may view the "union" a bit differently...
Actually, the Nobel Peace prize is awarded by a norwegian comittee, possibly a gesture by Nobel to improve the relations between Sweden and Norway.
Hey, I've found a link so I can end this rambling: www.nobel.se
Jag har sett det förr... med tanke på ditt user# har du nog bara haft otur.
En gång var det ett härligt flamewar mellan höger och vänstertyper. Dessutom blev det (förstås) några svenskspråkiga inlägg senast uttalet av Linux diskuterades.
Hm,... skriva på engelska till svenskar. Det gör jag tillräckligt på jobbet.
Slashdot Mirror
How? A human applies a certain pressure to the brake pedal. A skilled driver knows by practice just about how much to apply to begin with. A skilled driver also quickly adjusts that pressure judging by sensory input. A robot would face exactly the same challenge. Granted, a mechanical system would introduce a delay, but then you could just as well make a rule "Computer must not think faster than a human" or more general "Computer must imitate all human shortcomings"
I don't really think this will come to an actual contest, but I for one would prefer a contest where one participant is not predestined to lose.
True, but I doubt it would look like a Steve McQueen movie. Something about the way a swampy 60's-70's american suspension handles a tight corner that they can't reproduce...
Oh I know my left sock alright.
It's that bastard that keeps blocking the way, crashing into my T-shirt.
A case of technology ruining the sport, perhaps. (or rather ruining the show and thus sponsor income)
Somehow I agree with their desicion, though. Either they state rules to keep it a hight speed show, or skip all rules and start a free-for-all formula. (actually that *would* be cool)
Sort of reminds me of an argument why movie car-chases were so much better in the old days. It was because they used big american cars with hopeless traction and control. They could make a car spin around wildly at 50 km/h and later speed up the film. With a modern car you would have to soap the tires or actually drive as fast as it looks.
- AC posts something
- Plaintiff claims that a posting is defamatory. Either:
-
- Court either throw the case out (end of story) or..
- Agrees to try the case against John Doe
- ISP (or similar) is informed that a posting is up for court.
- ISP must make a reasonable effort to contact AC but has no obligation to disclose any identities yet. ISP may:
- Cancel the article at this point if its content is against their terms of service. (whistleblowing AC choose the wrong ISP)
- Discuss matters with AC. AC may weasel out (post dropped unless the ISP wants to fight anyway) or provide any additional facts and take the fight. Anonymous or shielded behind the ISP.
- Court rules on libel/defamation charge.
-
- AC/ISP wins, Yippie! or
- AC loses. His/her identity can be disclosed to the court *unless* ISP's terms of service states that the ISP owns/is responsible for any content on their site.
This would be more like in the newspaper world. A court may order an ISP to reveal a source (unlike with a paper in a civilized country) but the ISP can also assume responsibility for "their" content. (for a prize, like the right to the content or an legal insurance fee)- Directly to the ISP or...
- To a court
In the first case, there is less hassle, but the plaintiff will never have AC's identity (no court order)Automan?
Or would a holographic car be cheating? Or OK as long as it doesn't turn into a chopper in the chicane?
Go fast, turn left
Sort of like watching the tumble dryer.
"Go blue underwear, GO!"
"Oh my god NO! my left sock crashed into a T-shirt!"
Of course.
Computer must mechanically operate the same controls used by the human;
Why? The extra mechanics involved adds no real difficulty to the computers task. I agree that the computer should not have any extra control over the car, but what advantage does the computer get by issuing the set_brake_level(50); command insted of extend_left_foot(50); ?
Computer must fit in the same space as the human, including power source.
Yes, we want identical cars, but I'd rather state "Computer must be contained in the car. No remote control." That said I'd be equally impressed by a remote control setup as long as all sensors were in the car
Computer can have no electrical connection to vehicle for power or sensors; all its sensors must be self contained, and have no physical extension beyond what is allowed the human (no camera through the floor to follow the line :-)
Same as for the controls. Wether the computer has a direct feed from the cars sensors or points a camera at the dials and does some image processing is not important. What matters is that the computer must not have access to more information about vehicle status than the human.
Computer can have as many hands, legs, arms and eyes as it likes
Yes, but as I said: I prefer a display of AI not robitics.
Computer gets human equivalent sensors only - visible light vision and accelerometers; no radar, sonar, or active illumination allowed.
Hart to tell what is equivalent. A human has stereoscopic vision to measure distances. I think that would be a hard task to match.
Computer controlled car must meet same weight requirements as the human/car combination
Definitely. The question will rather be: Should the human car add ballast to make up for a heavy computer? I don't think it will be very lightweight...
*IF* this ever comes to be, I'd like to scale it down to an AI problem as much as possible, not a robotics/sensor contest. "Can a computer drive a car at 300 km/h?" is a much more interesting question than "Can a robot controlled by that computer operate the car?"
and not the only one, buddy...
But you got your analysis wrong. The third law would never come into effect here, since the robot/car is ordered to race as quickly as possible.
Thus, the second law will override the third and the robot/car will indeed take chances that a (normal) human wouldn't. (well it would slow down sometimes because a crash would mean that it failed to achieve it's objective, not to protect itself)
Fortunately for Shumacher, in every situation involving other cars with human drivers it would *have* to slow down. "cannot risk to fight for positions in this curve, someone might get hurt."
Then again, it might argue that a robot beating the F1 champ somehow would be good for humanity...
Actually, the typical standstill scenario involves a planet and at least two vessels.
"Captain the alien vessel has halted above the planet"
"Full stop! Hailing frequencies open! Ready with the blasters!"
I interpret this as
"Captain the alien vessel has entered a geostationary orbit around the planet"
"Move our ship into a similar orbit! (a rather complex manouver that severly limits the number of available attack angles on the alien vessel) No coffee breaks at the radio just now damnit! Yeah and the same goes for you blaster guys and please no cowboy stuff this time. I'll tell you when to blast aliens and not"
What fascinates me in both StarWars and Trek is the concept of a complete halt of a starship. When the falcon or the enterprise stands still in space, against what are they measuring their speed?
It wasn't a power socket, was it?
I always figured it *was* a data port, but the shock came from the stormtroopers blaster?
if (walk.status && (check_distance() == 0))
walk.stop;
Now we're getting somewhere (no we're not)
My point exactly.
My point, sort of, was that there may be an insurance situation where the event is certain, but the timing unknown. (otherwise I agree with your post)
A standby techie *is* insurance. The premium is the cost of paying someone to stand by. The [insert correct term for what an insurance company pays here] is the cost of having my business standing still while I search for a non-standby techie. (or the cost of my time if I am my own techie)
That said, can you agree to my point that the whole conept of insurance becomes flawed if the risk of a single person is known (as opposed to the statistical risk of any person)?
In this casino we all have loaded dice, but we don't know *how* they are loaded. If we did, there would be no need to play since we would know the outcome.
that said I disagree partly with your point about insuracne being only for unknown events. I know with 100% certainty that I will die eventually. I might still want a life insurance because I don't know *when*
If you run a web server, you *know* it will crash [insert Unix/MS comment here] so you might pay for a 24/7 standby techie as a form of insurance.
Nope.
There are three possible outcomes here:
- You take the test and find out that you are at risk.
- You take the test and find that you are not at risk.
- You don't take the test.
So your best chance is to get tested and find out that you are out of danger. But even then, you will only get part of the insurance companys savings.You're screwed. Or rather, if the test shows that you have 50% risk of developing the disease, your premium will be increased by (cost of treating disease)*0.50 + X, where X is the insurance companys margin of profit on you.
You'll get a lousy deal. Your premium will be decreased by (cost of treating disease)*(percentage of population who gets the disease) - X, that is, the insurance company will still charge you X£ to cover a disease you now know that you won't get (plus you paid for the test)
Your premium will not be affected, at first, but (no decrease) + (sligtly higher annual increase) = (higher premium) You are now pooled in a group where the premium is calculated according to (cost of treating disease)*(population)*(risk of disease)/((population) - (tested and OK)) whereas your personal risk of getting the disease is constant. In other words, you face the same risk, but will have to pay a higher premium to insure yourself against it.
How good are todays programs at, say, switching mouse icon when they are supposed to? Not so good that I could rely on the icon to know wether I should click or not.
But let's be optimistic. In the best case, gadgets like these will force UI designers to follow standards more. Less of that "Oh, but surely everyone should realize that they are supposed to right-control-doubleclick *there*" attitude.
*sigh* wouldn't the simplest and possibly best solution to mouse feedback be active mouse buttons? gently pop up the buttons when the pointer is over something intresting. More useful and less annoying thatn a vibrator. And if you want to make a useful blind-aid combine with six pop up dots braille style for text scanning and buttons to lock mouse movement to vertical/horizonal only. (I cant draw a straight line with a mouse and *with* visual feedback.)
What is also sad, but true is that most of those removals of oppressive govenments has lead to yet another oppressive government.
see Sovjet, Cuba, Iraq, etc
Don't really think that the majority of killings is done by people who *really* want to kill someone?
I don't have any statistics to quote here but I think that common sense says that (more difficulties involved in the killing) => (less killings)
I don't think there are many "madmen out to get you at any cost" outside the hollywood world.
There are unfortunately too many people who might wrongfully pull a trigger under stress while the extra effort/time involved in using a knife or a blunt object would have saved the victim
I didn't really mean that they were simply looking for an excuse to give him the prize, but that it was a great relief when they could give him his well deserved award without giving any credit to the theory of relativity.
Well, isn't that what I said?
It was clear, however, that Einstein deserved the prize, so he got it as soon as there was another work (the photoelectric effect) to award it for.
(or so the story goes)
Sweden and Norway was in a union from 1814-1905
That is: Norway was under Danish government but was "given" to Sweden (who sought some compensation for the recent (1809) loss of Finland to Russia in 1814.
Nobel was indeed swedish, born in Stockholm 1833 if my memory is correct, but all his life (he died 10 dec 1896, the prizes are given the day of his death) Sweden and Norway was in union.
Now the norwegians may view the "union" a bit differently...
Actually, the Nobel Peace prize is awarded by a norwegian comittee, possibly a gesture by Nobel to improve the relations between Sweden and Norway.
Hey, I've found a link so I can end this rambling: www.nobel.se
En gång var det ett härligt flamewar mellan höger och vänstertyper. Dessutom blev det (förstås) några svenskspråkiga inlägg senast uttalet av Linux diskuterades.
Hm,... skriva på engelska till svenskar. Det gör jag tillräckligt på jobbet.