A big problem in the historically richer parts of the West is that we have given up on properly educating our young people. Even the brighter ones are now less well educated than a generation or two ago, despite having 'better' paper qualifications, so our economies cannot compete. The weaker ones have already found their jobs replaced by automation or immigration; this is beginning to happen to the brighter ones too.
Part of the solution must be a massive unwinding of about 40 years of grade inflation. I don't expect that to happen, as the people who would have to do it are too young to have any idea how high education standards used to be.
Part of the solution must be a massive unwinding of about 40 years of grade inflation. I don't expect that to happen, as the people who would have to do it are too young to have any idea how high education standards used to be.
One thing I notice at the local major supermarket is the number of staff packing crates for online orders/delivery.
It is only a matter of time before supermarkets are transformed into robotised local logistics centres automatically supplying online orders for delivery by autonomous delivery vehicles.
Incorporation of RFID tags into packaging of goods will quite quickly become standard and stores will employ even less staff than present.
The existing supermarkets will downsize to minimal floor area and minimal stock levels, even to the point of 'display stock' only and tapping individual goods with your smartphone will generate your order for automated delivery.
Already there are 'smart' RFID convenience stores and supermarkets planned that automatically scan your bags, with the payment via smartphone incorporating biometric identification (finger print scan, iris scan, facial recognition etc) incorporated into your phone (next gen iPhone, Samsung etc).
IOW, your smartphone will become your wallet and passport to life with the ultimate aim that we are all 'chipped' and perfectly reliably identifiable and at a distance.
Just sayin'.
Dan.
It is only a matter of time before supermarkets are transformed into robotised local logistics centres automatically supplying online orders for delivery by autonomous delivery vehicles.
Incorporation of RFID tags into packaging of goods will quite quickly become standard and stores will employ even less staff than present.
The existing supermarkets will downsize to minimal floor area and minimal stock levels, even to the point of 'display stock' only and tapping individual goods with your smartphone will generate your order for automated delivery.
Already there are 'smart' RFID convenience stores and supermarkets planned that automatically scan your bags, with the payment via smartphone incorporating biometric identification (finger print scan, iris scan, facial recognition etc) incorporated into your phone (next gen iPhone, Samsung etc).
IOW, your smartphone will become your wallet and passport to life with the ultimate aim that we are all 'chipped' and perfectly reliably identifiable and at a distance.
Just sayin'.
Dan.
Yes, it is, isn't it? And it's not as though software ever has bugs in it, either, so we can all rest assured that those self-driving cars will always just Do The Right Thing (TM).
An interesting observation: it's been reported in some tests that chimpanzees, under controlled conditions, are better drivers than human beings. They see better, they have quicker reflexes, larger working memory, more muscle strength to use on the controls, and so on. However, I don't see a huge rush by people to demand that chimpanzees take over all their driving for them.
Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that chimps, smart as they are, do not have much understanding of many of the complex intellectual and social constructs that surround human culture and driving. (Such as the cost of car insurance, or the concept of imprisonment.)
Meantime, the raw intelligence potential of the computer hardware in today's self-driving cars is probably much less than that of a cockroach brain. Never mind a chimpanzee brain. ( IBM Unveils Chip That’s Maybe As Powerful As a Cockroach – Mother Jones )
But millions of people seem very eager to turn over most (all?) driving to these stupider-than-a-cockroach software systems.
Why are many of us willing to trust our safety to software running on computers that make cockroaches look smart? Why do we trust stupider-than-a-cockroach hardware more than we trust chimpanzees, which have brains many orders of magnitude more capable?
Is it, perhaps, because we have been misled by reading and watching too much science fiction about artificial intelligence during our formative years, when our critical faculties were not yet fully developed?
Incidentally, anyone else remember all those people who died in Toyota vehicles that ran away at full speed, and could neither be turned off, nor shifted into neutral?
1) Runaway Toyota cases ignored - LA Times
2) Toyota "Unintended Acceleration" Has Killed 89 - CBS News
After multiple lawsuits, it eventually came out that the coding practices (and computer hardware choices) used to write engine and transmission control firmware in Toyota consumer vehicles, failed to meet most of the standards normally used when writing software for life-critical systems (such as passenger airliners, medical equipment, space vehicles, et cetera.) In the end, Toyota agreed to pay US $1.2 billion for deliberately concealing their unintended acceleration problem:
Toyota to Pay $1.2B for Hiding Deadly Unintended Acceleration - ABC News
So we have the demonstrated fact that bad engine control software can (and did) kill large numbers of people who were actually attempting to drive their vehicles, with hands on the steering wheel and feet on the pedals.
But I'm sure that when we put computers entirely in charge of all driving, removing human drivers from the picture entirely, there will be no more hardware failures or firmware bugs, and everyone will be safe. Right?
-Gnobuddy
Let us hope that this does not become universal, as it would create a bootstrap problem for me. How can I buy my groceries, if first I have to buy a smartphone and to do that I need a smartphone? Am I the only one on here who only has a dumb phone (you know - the thing you use for phoning people) and has never ordered groceries online?Max Headroom said:
One problem is people tend to believe they are safe in cars, when in reality they have about a 1 in 10,000 chance to be killed in an automobile during a one year period.
89 people in a 10 year period is down in the noise (not that I would want to be one of those 89 people).
Actually one in 8,100 last year in the USA.
89 people in a 10 year period is down in the noise (not that I would want to be one of those 89 people).
Actually one in 8,100 last year in the USA.
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But they have to pay for them and put in effort to go do them. If they don't drive taking public transport is a big pain in the *** that lots of people do not want to contend with.
Walking to a bus/train/tram stop, waiting for the transport to arrive, walking to your destination once you get to where you're going. Paying for the service etc. No I'd rather sit on the couch or continue playing my PS4/Xbox. This is extremely common.
If, however, you could call up an EV directly to your door, not have to pay for it, have it take you directly to your destination, where the thing at said destination was completely free...then people would actually do other things.
Because school was forced upon them where they were also forced to learn about things that they were NOT interested in. I hated school. I'm not necessarily talking about learning a full on academic course. I'm meaning something like said couch potato wants to learn how to bake a certain type of cake, learn about the different types of birds they have coming to their garden, is interested in knowing what stars and constellations they can see at night. This isn't electronics 101, or go write an essay on Shakespeare with the doom and gloom of an exam in a few months.
It's just learning about things for the sake of learning. So you use your app and you see that there are enthusiastic bakers, bird watchers and amateur astronomers within 10 minutes of your house by EV. You arrange something because they want keen ears and you want to know more. There's no pressure on you to actually remember anything about it, but it's bringing people together in a positive way and hopefully you'll both have a good time.
Less work than just ordering one for yourself? Lots of people steal because they need to make a quick buck, but when there's no money. That TV isn't your next meal you just go get food.
Yes except now you just get one legitimately without needing to resort to stealing it.
Look human nature in this day and age is twisted because of how absolutely bollocks society is. People can't live or do things in anyway close to how they would wish to.
People are not inherently lazy, if we were we'd have died out as a species a very long time ago. Tell someone they do not need to work any more, just go home and you need not worry about money, and most people would rejoice. They'd go home and do nothing for a while, but after a while has passed...not having to do anything gets extremely tiresome. People want to do things. Lots of people think that they don't due to the severe lack of free time that most are currently faced with. But once they've been given a taste of it they realise that isn't true. People want to actively engage in something productive or figure out how to do something new, play an instrument, whatever. If someone is depressed however, or has an axe to grind, then they will just want to sit there doing nothing.
Of course you'd still have people who want to burgle because doing so excites them. They do it for the thrill or the challenge, but most people do it because they need money.
Don't get me wrong I know that transitioning into a society such as that would be difficult but the one were in isn't that great.
Most people I believe feel a sense of achievement and satisfaction from having to work in some way in order to survive, this is how it has always been. I foresee problems if this need is taken away totally. It's just in most Western cultures the balance is wrong and we've chosen to work much more than we need in order to stay alive
I'll see you your dumb phone, and raise you no mobile phone at all.
I used to have a cellphone, but gave it up when it stopped being a communication technology, and instead became primarily a tracking and snooping technology for invasive governments and corporations. My life is utterly uninteresting to spooks and spies, but I prefer not to be followed about by bevies of creepy spies with psychopathic personalities, vast judicial powers, and virtual binoculars trained on my every move.
Not that getting rid of your cellphone will stop all the spying and tracking, but that's another topic for another thread.
-Gnobuddy
Essentially yes, except that in a world without money a lot of the general infrastructure built around wealth would disappear. For example a Ferrari is currently seen as a luxury item that few can afford and they aren't built in particularly large quantities.
Currently the economy of consumer items is built around a structure that says produce different versions of the same thing at different price points.
Take SEAS for example, they have the Prestige line and the Excel line. What's the point in the Prestige line? Nothing except that it costs less. In terms of resources the difference between the 5" Prestige driver and the 5" Excel driver is virtually nothing. The only reason the 5" Prestige driver exists (with is poorer performance) is because people cannot afford the Excel line. You could say that SEAS are essentially selling you a faulty product with the Prestige driver, because for the same resource cost they know how to make you something significantly better.
In a resource based world companies would stop making things to a specific price point and just make the best products that they can. Obviously to certain specifications though. Take TVs for example, instead of having 10 different 40" TVs, Sony would now just strive to make one, that would be the best 40" TV that they can. Clearly Sony couldn't just make one TV, say a 100" version, because not everyone wants a 100" TV in their house, but you get the point.
No planetary resources aren't infinite but keep in mind that consumer items are already built in massive numbers already. They just aren't all Ferrari's. Ferrari's aren't anything special when it comes to resources they are just different, built in small quantities and seen as being highly desirable. They apparently have terrible reliability so most people wouldn't want one anyway
Robots will not design things though, that will still be down to the engineers striving for a technologically superior product. I mean you wouldn't have to pay me to build/design better things, I enjoy doing it. Give me the resources and robot facilities to do so and I'll do so every day
But in a world where we have capable robots recycling will also be a huge thing. What about the new 40" TV that replaces all the old 40" TVs? Clearly, for the people who want to upgrade, the old one would need to be recycled otherwise resources would dwindle. But it has to be pointed out that it's really only enthusiasts who would strictly want to replace their old model as soon as a new one came out.
It's like the new improved bread knife, can opener, coffee machine, TV, CD player, dishwasher, carpet cleaner, bed sheet, LED lamp...only enthusiasts would actually be aware of when a new version comes out and only enthusiasts would realistically care about what the new version has to offer (and therefore get excited about it), enough to want to immediately change. Most people only really have a need to replace an old item when the old one stops working properly or becomes a hassle. People do like new and improved versions of things but only of things they have an interest in.
There are native-American reservations where every member gets a fat monthly paycheque from the tribe's income (from casinos, oil, etc). With free housing, free land, free education for the kids, and free money, it turns out that many people are not at all happy, and often develop severe depression and/or substance addictions. It seems most of us need external challenges and a role in society to feel okay.
If by "stay alive" you mean "live in a cardboard box by the side of the road, with no way to pay for necessary medical treatment", then I agree.
Here in Canada (and certainly in most non-USA Western cultures), you can remove the "medical treatment" clause, but the cost of housing is still sky-high.
A lot of people now work extremely long, and extremely hard, and still barely scratch out an existence. There are a lot of "working poor" now.
I read all those little articles about the tiny house movement, and I am glad there is now a movement towards minimalism, but it turns out that you need to work quite a lot to afford a tiny house or minimalist living.
-Gnobuddy
If history teaches us anything it's clear that Robots will make the rich (the owners) richer and the rest of us poorer. Especially in Trumps America.
As far as cars go the real breakthrough will be when there all networked together so your car will know what cars around it are doing before they do it and a central computer can control many cars at once. Until the hackers get in.
As far as cars go the real breakthrough will be when there all networked together so your car will know what cars around it are doing before they do it and a central computer can control many cars at once. Until the hackers get in.
Exactly, basic primate social structure always takes over. (Those lovable Japanese snow-monkeys bathing in the hot springs? They are the aristocrats. The peasant-monkeys are shivering in the snow around the pool, trying not to freeze to death from the cold. There is plenty of room for all in the hot water, but the aristocrat monkeys will attack and kill any lowly monkey who tries to enter the water.)
And the traffic cops will know what your car is doing, too. Swerve over the yellow line to avoid a mad pedestrian who steps off the curb in front of you, and you will get the very expensive ticket. Not the drunken guy leaving the bar.
No, no, self-driving cars will always be perfectly safe, and completely immune to all the failings of computer software and hardware that we see constantly elsewhere.
-Gnobuddy
Or simply, safely turn left? Maybe they will use fuzzy logic to solve a trolley problem when it comes up, Trolley problem - Wikipedia.
IMHO, it will never happen, just as 100's of Amazon drones trying to land in back yards to deliver groceries won't either unless the .gov intervenes and holds them harmless for certain failures of software as well as mechanics. IMHO it will never happen.
They suggested speed governors in the past but that failed. With self driving the problem is solved no (self driving) car goes over the posted limit ever until 100% are self driving. A demo of this drove some car mag writers nuts, like waiting at an entrance ramp until there were no oncoming cars at all.
There are differences in legal systems too, here most likely if the software in the control of the manufacturer is responsible for any life/death decisions they will be fully exposed to damages.
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