Except this time real advances are being made.

Post #118,249 by inthane-chan 9/19/03 4:44:15 PM Reply	Except this time real advances are being made. Quantum computing will change how a lot of computing is done - it is theorized that a good amount of our thought processes take advantage of the quantum process, which may explain to a certain extent the failure of traditional computing to truly produce "artificial" intelligence. In addition, many advances in the understanding and reproduction of biological systems are being made - synthetic muscles that contract and expand based on electrical pulses, not mechanical systems, the increased understanding of emergent behavior (complex results from simple systems - most computerized walker technology comes from this) - there are a lot of advances these days that actually have a lot more potential than the blathering of some deluded idealogue. Remember, the robots don't have to do enough work to keep EVERYBODY in luxury - they just have to do enough to keep the wealthy in luxury, and hang the rest of us. In that final hour, when each breath is a struggle to take, and you are looking back over your life's accomplishments, which memories would you treasure? The empires you built, or the joy you spread to others? Therin lies the true measure of a man.
Post #118,257 by Arkadiy 9/19/03 5:49:50 PM Reply	Perfect. Artificial muscle and artificial brains. Just as flexible and street-smart as humans. Als just as cranky, just as error prone, just as greedy. My firm belief is that we will achieve artificial intelligence in the quite foreceable future. And we shall see that it likes work no better than the real kind. Laziness and intelligence are intertwined. Of course, this will pose its own set of problems. For the first time, we shall be faced with genuinly non-human truly telligent life. But that set of problem will have nothing to do with the problem that "robots" bring. -- One Buffalo Bill And one Biffalo Buff
Post #118,271 by inthane-chan 9/19/03 6:29:09 PM Reply	Not quite true. There's a lot of people out there who do enjoy doing their work. I believe it would be possible to build a reward system into a robot that would leave it capable of creativity and yet still be willing to work itself in all kinds of conditions that a human laborer would not. Remember, the robot doesn't have to be as all-around perceptive as we are - all it has to have is enough intellectual capacity to do the job at hand, and follow orders. Anything above and beyond that is wasted, and hence will be ignored. And that scares the shit out of me, because that is where "emergent behavior" is going to come back and bite us in the ass. Rise of the machines, indeed. In that final hour, when each breath is a struggle to take, and you are looking back over your life's accomplishments, which memories would you treasure? The empires you built, or the joy you spread to others? Therin lies the true measure of a man.
Post #118,342 by Arkadiy 9/20/03 7:49:34 PM Reply	You assume that human behaviors are simple and can be cleably separated into job-related and not. My _belief_ is that such assumption is untrue. The entity capable of safely sweeping factory floor has to know so much about the world that it has to be raised, not mass-produced. It does not matter if it's constructed and not born. It does not matter if you call the process "raising a child" or "training a robot". The result of this process will have to know a lot of things, including the fact that "work" is something to be avoided as much as possible, the fact that his supervisor needs to be obeyed, but only to some extent, the fact that you don't step on living things unless you absolutely must and so on and so forth. Any attempt to consciously construct a set of rules ("program") for such an entity is doomed to failure. In order to be safe, it's "emergent behavior" must have already emerged by the time you introduce it into the work process. That's why children don't work in factories. -- One Buffalo Bill And one Biffalo Buff
Post #118,347 by orion 9/20/03 9:34:02 PM Reply	Children working in factories in some countries they actually do. Get paid less than adults too. My mother-in-law in Thailand dropped out of the sixth grade to work in a factory to help support her family. No child-labor laws there. *"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"*
Post #118,351 by JayMehaffey 9/20/03 10:33:35 PM Reply	Another example India actually has labor unions where one of the criteria to be a member is being a child. When you get too old, say 18, your kicked out of the union. It's been something of a moral problem for certain liberal groups who naturally want to support a union but don't want to support child labor. But ultimatly that is a bit of misleading point. Children are capable of learning complex tasks and dealing with a lot on their own if forced to. American children often seem hapless because they are carefully protected from learning how to cope with difficult situations until they reach college, and sometimes even after that. Jay
Post #118,352 by JayMehaffey 9/20/03 10:52:10 PM Reply	Next step in chain While computer AIs are getting smarter and smarter, I expect it will be decades if not more before ones that can adapt as easily as humans can. What I expect the next step in the chain to be is humans leading small teams of robots. Rather then have a staff of 3 people to clean the building, the company will have 1 person who takes care of the stuff that the sweeper bot, trash bot and mop bot can't deal with. Of course, the depends on wages staying at a resonable level. If the current downward trend in real earning continues, it might be cheaper to have people to do the work. Not that wage collapse would not be a particularly good solution to the employment problem. Taken to the extreme, we would end up with a society with only a lower and upper class, the middle class having been wiped out by wage reduction. Jay
Post #118,355 by Ashton 9/21/03 1:01:54 AM Reply	I view any AI wishful thinking similarly.. I believe that the beautifully conceived -- and uttery fanciful HAL-9000 has fed suppositions and inane expectations more than any other identifiable symbol. Yeah! Let's Build One of Those.. [Hah] The more I've talked with folks across (various fancy-named) disciplines having to do with, "how we learn" -- the less prospect I can see for machine-creations in anything 'like' Our Likeness. The incomprehensibly massive reorganization of the neurons in the infant's brain, over weeks -->> months (let alone years) post-partum is simpy a Wonder! inexpressible no matter how artfully crafted be the pseudo-scientific natterings about 'understanding' !! this Wonder. And were the above comprehension much more realizable than I believe is possible - any idea of ethical er engrams? of the I, Robot variety; anything as addresses such a concept as 'a machine's attitude!' -- whether towards work? or Boss!! == floobydust of the same granularity IMhO. We can 'say' it - but lots of people talk to God, and think She talks back, too. Even with threading, insofar as machine coding might go - add in neural-network pattern recognition theories: humans still think serially, ploddingly About-'thinking'! relying upon some massive parallelism magically just sorta sufficing. If we just wish hard enough. Natch I Don't Know what breakthroughs may occur in modelling this Wonder; what I think I know today is: we are nowhere Near creating a robot capable of a shadow of the learning-curve of a human or Bonobo or __ or Any Live Humanoid Animal. (Besides... the $$ today is in multi-channel theatre sound + video! in your new Urban Assault Vehicle: that's where bizness is ever magnetically-drawn - the max-costly toys as might soon have a hook in the mass mind. Never mind the heaped dead bodies as result from even more compelling driver distractions: we never have (minded)) Ashton Worsening Dumbth doesn't seem to be a particularly nutritious medium, anyway - for any next massive breakthroughs..

Welcome to IWETHEY!