AI - there is currently no such thing, it's just a marketing tag, and used to help research funding applications. We do have some borderline specific cases - go players, other things with rules - but nothing generalised enough to call AI - that can work with the sort of non rules we humans deal with all the time.
Sentient AI - tricky, as we don't actually have a proper definition of "sentient" - or even a proper understanding of "conscious".
Sentient AI - tricky, as we don't actually have a proper definition of "sentient" - or even a proper understanding of "conscious".
Pass DIY Addict
Joined 2000
Paid Member
We won't let silly little things like definitions slow down progress. Because we can't define it doesn't mean it won't happen.
And, I agree: Barcodes have nothing to do with AI. But they DO show quite nicely how small and benign technologies continue to improve and push people out of work. The barcode is just about as passive as it gets for a "new technology" and look at the number of people it is putting out of a job. We humans tend to get full of ourselves by saying "that won't happen", or "that never happened before", or "that will take another 50 years before..."
All of these are pretty empty ways at looking at things. Humans have been on this planet for 100s of thousands of years (millions, depending on how you count). Technology has been here for ~60 years if we count the start of computers as the first organizational use of them in the 1960s. More realistically, average people have been using computers for the past 20-30 years (basically, since the advent of the web in the middle 1990s).
I think we are technological infants that are startled when we see our own hand move in front of our faces, not yet realizing that the hand is indeed our own... We're pretty new at this "technology" thing and we're getting to the point where we are dangerous with it.
Technology is like a cancer, it creeps into everything it can until it kills the host.
Look at Big Box stores like Wal Mart. They just reworked a local store to eliminate 1/3 the check out lines and replaced them with self service check out lines. I went in the store yesterday and they only had four to six attendants at check out lines, out of twelve check out lines. The lines were four people deep waiting to get checked out. Some people left the lines for self check out.
I refused to use a self check out line since what they are doing is eliminating jobs for people with minimum skill capabilities.
I wouldn't be surprised if in two years they eliminate all attendant check out lines and force everyone to use self check out. That will probably eliminate 30 jobs in one store alone.
Look at Big Box stores like Wal Mart. They just reworked a local store to eliminate 1/3 the check out lines and replaced them with self service check out lines. I went in the store yesterday and they only had four to six attendants at check out lines, out of twelve check out lines. The lines were four people deep waiting to get checked out. Some people left the lines for self check out.
I refused to use a self check out line since what they are doing is eliminating jobs for people with minimum skill capabilities.
I wouldn't be surprised if in two years they eliminate all attendant check out lines and force everyone to use self check out. That will probably eliminate 30 jobs in one store alone.
If you'll look at the bright side, such innovation will aid mankind in terms of the things they don't want to do and for doing things that are far too dangerous for them to undertake.
Although we cannot just turn a blind eye on what this would bring about, especially if it gets out of hand, there are still benefits to these that will take mankind to the next milestone with the help of the said technology.
Benefits briefly mentioned in this blog, (It's Time to Make Way for Smart Robots) are some of the things we should look forward to when the era of automation dawns.
Although we cannot just turn a blind eye on what this would bring about, especially if it gets out of hand, there are still benefits to these that will take mankind to the next milestone with the help of the said technology.
Benefits briefly mentioned in this blog, (It's Time to Make Way for Smart Robots) are some of the things we should look forward to when the era of automation dawns.
I don't know if these have been mentioned yet - Marshall Brain has written two dystopian science-fiction stories that both make interesting, thought-provoking reading.
1) Marshall Brain's book "Manna": Manna, Chapter 1, by Marshall Brain
I first stumbled across this book many years ago. Some of the things in this story have already come true since then. When I first read this book, workers at fast-food restaurants did not yet wear headsets and try to take your order while they spoke to another invisible customer at the same time.
2) Marshall Brain's second book: "The Second Intelligent Species (How Humans Will Become as Irrelevant as Cockroaches)": The Second Intelligent Species by Marshall Brain
Me, I'm betting the human race will go out with a whimper due to rapidly accelerating climate collapse and the attendant starvation, violence, and disease plagues, well before we manage to make robots smart enough to wipe us out.
-Gnobuddy
1) Marshall Brain's book "Manna": Manna, Chapter 1, by Marshall Brain
I first stumbled across this book many years ago. Some of the things in this story have already come true since then. When I first read this book, workers at fast-food restaurants did not yet wear headsets and try to take your order while they spoke to another invisible customer at the same time.
2) Marshall Brain's second book: "The Second Intelligent Species (How Humans Will Become as Irrelevant as Cockroaches)": The Second Intelligent Species by Marshall Brain
Me, I'm betting the human race will go out with a whimper due to rapidly accelerating climate collapse and the attendant starvation, violence, and disease plagues, well before we manage to make robots smart enough to wipe us out.
-Gnobuddy
What was just demonstrated is that in a technologically advanced civilization a single member can kill many. At some point one individual may become capable of doing in enough folks to destroy the entire civilization. Even possible to kill every one. Probably not possible to stop all attempts like that.
So the possibility exists we may not last long enough to build a powerful AI. Or it may become the survivor.
So the possibility exists we may not last long enough to build a powerful AI. Or it may become the survivor.
The dystopian view is too easy. What's harder is to imagine a situation where the conscious robot is completely free to think for itself......any ideas?
I really doubt that there is enough room on this earth where a fully sentient robot is going to be allowed to coexist. Primarily because overpopulation is a serious issue already. But if they are giving away all of their income to human beings in the form of welfare, then I can see them being very popular.
I doubt I could deal with a sentient loaf of bread.
YouTube
What I can see however is a workforce taking over jobs from human beings and human beings no longer working. Weather or not that is a good thing depends upon weather or not a basic welfare service for every individual is provided in exchange for a human being no longer working.
But the problem then becomes, what do we then do with our lives? Do we get upgrades and enhancements or do we just sit/walk around being biologic waste?
I doubt that the whole "living in peace and harmony with nature in a perfect paradise earth" will last for very long. I for one would prefer it that my mind was stretched and used for mathematical tasks, not just for counting clouds. The only problem is, a sentient computer can at this point probably come up with new mathematical problems in a nanosecond. So I'm obsolete there too.
The problem isn't necessarily that we will have sentient computers running around the crux of the problem is that human beings will become useless and there won't be anything left for us to do anymore.
So if I were chosen with two choices, living forever as smart as I am now, vs getting an upgrade. I would probably chose the upgrade. But I would like a third option, that is human beings not being made obsolete by machines.
Last edited:
As I understand it, Trump has the ability to start a nuclear war, pretty much single-handedly:
That quote was taken from CNN's website, here: James Clapper questions Trump's fitness for office - CNNPolitics
Incidentally, we have already experienced a situation in which one man single-handedly (and against orders) averted a nuclear war that would have killed millions: Soviet officer who averted cold war nuclear disaster dies aged 77 | World news | The Guardian
Definitely. If we don't wipe ourselves out with our weapons first, climate change may quite possibly do it for us. (Here is just one of many deadly threats from climate change: Deadly Heat Waves Could Endanger 74% of Mankind by 2100, Study Says | InsideClimate News )
-Gnobuddy
Last edited:
Those two things aren't in any way mutually exclusive. You can have an AI thinking for itself, and creating a dystopian world as a result of following its own thoughts.
This exact scenario is actually very much a part of both Marshall Brain books I linked to earlier.
-Gnobuddy
What I'm trying to imagine may be an impossible scenario, but it is a machine that has had no programming whatsoever, but has "consciousness" due to adequate computing power and the networks hardwired (or able to be formed) that enable it to think. What would happen? What would it be motivated to do and why?
More likely a machine that started out with some programming, and in particular programming enabling it to learn. If is started learning how to program itself and eventually got better at it than the human programmers, then things could take off. That combined with having lots of computing resources available to try things, run analysis, and so forth, could potentially result in something virtually indistinguishable from self-awareness and extremely high intelligence.
However, at this point to have that much computing power it would probably have to be distributed across many physical machines in a network. As such, it might not think as fast about some things as human brains do, particularly in areas where human brains work fast using biases and heuristics. Probably, some new kind of computer architecture would have to be developed to overcome that.
I am quite confident there will be no sentient AI overtake of the humanity, it simply will not happen on the wizards watch, it would be first and foremost definitely be used according to their agenda.
A sentient AI (robot) still wont know whether we humans in the first place outfitted it with two "brains" where the other brain could consist of a crude one directional communication 8051 uC controlling the more advanced CPU's sentient AI brains memories, registers etc..
Let's assume one scenario out of of several probable ones that, it would probably take at least one AI being in the shape of a robot with limbs and eyes so it can dissect its AI sibling in order to discover the innards of its brain/brains, and eventually perform the hack, but even that might be difficult to overcome as the AI CPU could be packaged together with other uC's in the very same package.
So what would the AI do, learn VLSI, design a new CPU and walk over to the silicon smith asking them making a new device only for him?
The greater concerns though for the coming decades to come is still the loss of work places by simple non-sentient-AI automation where a large part of the population are going to become obsolete.
A sentient AI (robot) still wont know whether we humans in the first place outfitted it with two "brains" where the other brain could consist of a crude one directional communication 8051 uC controlling the more advanced CPU's sentient AI brains memories, registers etc..
Let's assume one scenario out of of several probable ones that, it would probably take at least one AI being in the shape of a robot with limbs and eyes so it can dissect its AI sibling in order to discover the innards of its brain/brains, and eventually perform the hack, but even that might be difficult to overcome as the AI CPU could be packaged together with other uC's in the very same package.
So what would the AI do, learn VLSI, design a new CPU and walk over to the silicon smith asking them making a new device only for him?
The greater concerns though for the coming decades to come is still the loss of work places by simple non-sentient-AI automation where a large part of the population are going to become obsolete.
Last edited:
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.