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Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Sat May 09, 2015 11:51 am

One of the great tragedies of the "modern era" is our neglect of wisdom (especially in America) and particularly our elders...I tend to listen to the older folks who've been around the longest and have developed the most interesting, and likely accurate, long view...like Ray Kurzweil who sez the singularity will be upon us in about 15 years. We're talking about software development here after all - and it's pretty much developing at an exponential pace. Robotics is a bit behind on the curve, but it's still exponential. This is not a small issue...it's one of the most profound issues of our time...right up there with environmental degradation.

I saw on BBC World News yesterday that the UK is developing an armed drone that "uses on-board computers to perform manoeuvres, avoid threats and identify targets." That last bit means humans might no longer really be pulling the trigger on some of the world's most advanced weapons. What's the distinction between identifying the target and firing? One could argue that the machine age has fully arrived when computers kill humans (oh...sorry..."enemy combatants" means no innocent women or children are harmed) with such weapons.

Or, if you're like me, you might think it arrived a few years ago, when most of us ignorantly and therefore silently surrendered many of our our constitutional human rights to our shiny toys.

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Sat May 09, 2015 1:05 pm

Gonga wrote: ... Or, if you're like me, you might think it arrived a few years ago, when most of us ignorantly and therefore silently surrendered many of our our constitutional human rights to our shiny toys.

Surrendered to our shiny toys? No. Our toys don't extend life or create superhuman abilities. Surrendered our constitutional human rights to our increasingly police-state government and our true rulers the corporations? Yes. If that's the true singularity (when the people are governed by corporations), I'm distinctly the opposite of amazed and impressed.

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Sat May 09, 2015 1:59 pm

arkmabat wrote:Haha. Wait... I'm serious about quantum computing though. 15 to 20 years.

See my previous post about things being perpetually 15-20 years in the future...

"The closest science has come is a system that can't factor a two-digit number as quickly as a 10-year-old child."
http://www.inc.com/will-bourne/d-waves- ... chine.html

trimph1 · Post by **trimph1** » Sat May 09, 2015 8:01 pm

Jace-BeOS wrote:
arkmabat wrote:Haha. Wait... I'm serious about quantum computing though. 15 to 20 years.
See my previous post about things being perpetually 15-20 years in the future...

"The closest science has come is a system that can't factor a two-digit number as quickly as a 10-year-old child."
http://www.inc.com/will-bourne/d-waves- ... chine.html

Yeah, but in 15-20 years I might expect that we will have systems that are more like a dystopian view of computers.

We still have tech that can't do what we think it should do...

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Sun May 10, 2015 12:09 am

Oh I don't argue against our computing technology becoming even MORE of a pain in the ass in the future...

I honestly feel true artificial intelligence will happen as an accident. A biproduct of the attempt to build something else. We see code with so many unintended (and adverse) effects already. Computers should NOT behave like they have attitude, personality, or voodoo... but they damn well DO. It is already impossible to determine exactly how and why something like, say... WINDOWS... behaves the way it does on all the variations of hardware out there that claims to be supported.

It's a little like how a real brain works: tons of interacting systems that cannot be independently isolated from each other to figure out why it all does what it does together. I find it freaky and depressing that companies and programmers can allow a product to get so bloated, over-complicated, and unwieldy that they cannot physically accomplish the basic goal of making it reliably do the things it's supposed to do, nor track all the reasons for why it might act in unexpected ways once it is presented to the world as a commercial product.

In response to complaints that software is so buggy, every indoctrinated programmer on Earth says "you don't understand! This is complex stuff and can never be totally bug-free!" I say bollocks!

The geeks love blaming users: "You must be doing SOMETHING wrong!" Well, right back at you: If the nature of the thing is so unpredictable and troublesome, and it's outside your ability to make it be otherwise, you're doing it wrong!

Ooo... rant...

Doug1978 · Post by **Doug1978** » Sun May 10, 2015 2:21 am

Nothing will happen in the future.

Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Sun May 10, 2015 1:50 pm

Actually, everything IS happening in the future, just not the past - Albert Einstein

Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Sun May 10, 2015 1:58 pm

Jace-BeOS wrote:
Gonga wrote: ... Or, if you're like me, you might think it arrived a few years ago, when most of us ignorantly and therefore silently surrendered many of our our constitutional human rights to our shiny toys.
Surrendered to our shiny toys? No. Our toys don't extend life or create superhuman abilities. Surrendered our constitutional human rights to our increasingly police-state government and our true rulers the corporations? Yes. If that's the true singularity (when the people are governed by corporations), I'm distinctly the opposite of amazed and impressed.

Your toys do their bidding, but mostly if you join up with Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Doug1978 · Post by **Doug1978** » Sun May 10, 2015 2:07 pm

Gonga wrote:Actually, everything IS happening in the future, just not the past - Albert Einstein

But do the past and future ever exist if matters are only considered in the present?

And if the future exists, then there's a chance at some point that 'nothing' will happen (again).

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Sun May 10, 2015 8:15 pm

as a precog, i have looked into the future and i can tell you for certain that 500 years from now we will all be dead. that is all.

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Sun May 10, 2015 8:23 pm

We need to round up all the data in the world, label it human's 'earth' and shuttle them away to another galaxy.

ksandvik · Post by **ksandvik** » Sun May 10, 2015 8:31 pm

One person DJ shows will be replaced by a robot that does the show.

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Sun May 10, 2015 9:50 pm

ksandvik wrote:One person DJ shows will be replaced by a robot that does the show.

What's the difference?

Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Sun May 10, 2015 10:33 pm

aciddose wrote:
ksandvik wrote:One person DJ shows will be replaced by a robot that does the show.
What's the difference?

Ouch! A bit harsh!

Doug1978 wrote:
Gonga wrote:Actually, everything IS happening in the future, just not the past - Albert Einstein
But do the past and future ever exist if matters are only considered in the present?

And if the future exists, then there's a chance at some point that 'nothing' will happen (again).

Yes, since there is no "future" or "present" in cosmological terms. In other words, your notion that we only consider matters in the present is likely an illusion, and the discussion is largely an argument of semantics (what is "the present?"). According to Einstein, time is another dimension that changes when you change your frame of reference. So the future is happening now. We have tested this hypothesis, and like all Einstein's tested hypotheses, it is supported by all available evidence (we have travelled into the "future" slightly).

Your point that there's a chance that nothing will happen may or may not be true, but there is no evidence that there was ever "nothing happening" in the past. The idea appears to violate every observation ever made. In fact, a stronger argument might be that only one thing is certain in the Universe, and that is change. Your idea is extraordinary, and therefore requires extraordinary evidence to ever be accepted as a scientific conclusion.

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Mon May 11, 2015 3:52 am

About what will happen in the future