Not a chance
I hoped I would be able to escape the derp, but it is every damned place, even the places I considered to be derp-free sanctuaries.
Look, people: Robots are not what Hollywood says they are. And AI is not just around the corner. No computer yet is able to “Think” independantly of it’s programming. And nobody will be combining those two nonexistent things for a long time.
Industrial robots are pretty sophisticated, but no more than they need to be. And that is that. Period. Nobody is going to sell you a Chrysler Minivan and all of a sudden you find out one day it also has a swimming pool and a Cray supercomputer with articulated arms and a flamethrower; it just doesn’t happen that way, and robots will NOT all of a sudden become self aware and take over the earth. The liklihood is a lot higher that we will all be killed by a particularly virulent toe fungus that is mutating in the drains of a whorehouse shower right now. The “Killer robots” bullshit is just as stupid as chemtrails and anti vaxxing and the balance of that ignorant bullshit.
Amended to add this quote by Ed Hering, who sums it up perfectly:
“You can give your robot a convincing simulation of initiative, but what you’ll actually be doing is writing a random number generator”
Perfectly put.
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For me, it’s gotten to the point that pretty much every time I see someone predicting the “rise of the machines!!!!!11” I don’t even roll my eyes any longer.
Over at Ace of Spades HQ there’s a link in the sidebar to something about Steve Wozniak saying we should all live in fear of the robot apocalypse, and I just think it’s a shame that such an intelligent man has become pot-addled.
Statement overhead in my office a year or so ago:
“Lots of artists, musicians and actors believe in UFOs, and they’re very smart people, so UFOs are probably real.”
I keep reminding people, half the population, by definition, is below average intelligence.
And that the average ain’t all that high to begin with.
Well. When it DOES happen, I want one.
I for one welcome our new mechanical overlords. :D
Know how you feel about the derp; I was with a group of people I thought I knew pretty well over the weekend, and one of them spent way too much time talking about how the Jews knew not to go to work on September 11. I literally had to uncurl my hands, they had clenched up into fists. I know violence doesn’t solve anything but it would have given me great pleasure to beat the brakes off that idiot. Instead I had to let it all pass by me. It was difficult but I managed. And now I will do my damndest to avoid that guy.
Jenny
Violence has a history of solving things. That it does not is the biggest lie ever perpetrated.
I think the ability of violence to solve problems depends on the scale and scope.
Applied to problems like Nazi Germany (large scale, massive scope) it worked very nicely indeed. Tuning up some blow-hard spouting nonesense (small scale, limited scope) is unlikely to solve the underlying problem. The guy will almost certainly still be a blow-hard who believes the nonsense, he just won’t spout it in your presence. (Actually, that might count as solving the problem; hmmm …)
Tuning up a guy for kicking an innocent dog works, i know that. The trick is to make them fear reprisal so much that they will act properly even when not being observed.
Only people who make their living working in technical fields understand the AI thing. When Y2K came along I couldn’t believe the crap that was spouted as gospel. My hospital even had 55gal. drums of water in the hallways. I had to work all night for fear that when the clock ticked over all the equipment in the hospital would stop working if software patches weren’t installed. The IT people made more money out of that. We are a nation of sheep. We will believe anything put before us on a screen.
Violence is the process by which we decide who gets to decide how to solve problems.
Speaking of robots. What’s your opinion on when a kitchen robot like “Rosie” will become available? What are the greatest obstacles to getting there?
“robots will NOT all of a sudden become self aware and take over the earth”
That’s just what the robots want you to think!
Nathan: Regarding how low the average is, indeed.
A few years ago a NYC newspaper published an article expressing shock, SHOCK I say, that half of the NYC public school children had reading levels below average. Note, NOT below grade-level, but below average. Ummm, isn’t that kinda the DEFINITION of average? Yeah, I know, mean, median, midpoint. For a normal distribution they’re interchangeable.
Mr chubbins: not in the lifetimes of your great grandchildren, and brutally expensive. You could make a mock-up that could do very limited things, but nothing fully functional.
“Violence has a history of solving things. That it does not is the biggest lie ever perpetrated.”
This, I’m stealing it.
Mark, yeah, I know…Sigh.
I was really hoping to be long dead before society crumbled. Guess that’s a lost hope.
“The trick is to make them fear reprisal so much that they will act properly even when not being observed.”
I think this is directly related to the statement, “I’m going to kick you so hard, your mother will feel it.”
If the robots follow the development curve that the internet did, the sexbots will be the first gen.
Don: that is brilliant, and most likely perfectly true.
Don, I’ve been wondering for years why no one has put animatronics in a Real Doll.
What I wonder about is if shooting will be as much fun whenever we move from projectile to energy weapons. Will it be as much of a challenge then?
I can think of a passive aggressive predator bully who needed tuning up badly- but he escaped my grasp by graduating, and leaving the locale. and Oh- he was very smart! Sharp enough to pull a bunch of crap before getting caught out by me. Still pissed about the escape:( He will certainly continue that trait till he gets corrected. Certainly was selective to avoid that outcome. Surprise asshat- those girls have friends(he picked ones without male siblings). Us ‘Older folks’ as friends (as me) do not view the new non-violence policies as binding…
grrr.
Since they already have sex robots. Sure they are not autonomous, but do they need to be?
Interesting times indeed
In reinforcement of your thesis, which I think you’ve heard chapter and verse from me before, on AI: no Deep Blue did not “beat” Bobby Fisher at chess. Deep Blue’s PROGRAMMERS did, and they did it by ganging up on Fisher, and they cheated by using a computer to calculate their moves. I’m not sure that TRUE artificial intelligence is possible, or even likely, and it’s sure not, as you say, right around the corner.
Fun notion to play with, though.
M
Indeed.