[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', '&')quot;I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish."

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'F')orget Musk...Anyhow -- has he stopped going on about this, though? I don't see anything recent about it.

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'M')usk to build the largest solar panel factory in the western hemisphere:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')an Elon Musk Save Buffalo?

As part of the program, billionaire Elon Musk is opening the largest solar-panel factory of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

Like Pittsburgh and Cleveland, two other former manufacturing hubs that lost about half their populations during the past 40 years, Buffalo is benefiting from the increasing allure of urban life for millennials. Musk’s SolarCity factory will be fed by engineering graduates from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Brown said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-19/how-elon-musk-can-make-buffalo-known-for-more-than-wings.html

[Sixstrings]

I'll tell ya what, google and facebook DO NEED REGULATION regarding all our data they have and what they do with it.

That has got to be watched.

Many have given up their privacy and rights because we like these products so much -- and they're often free -- who wants to go back to paying Microsft $75 for bloated junk ya know?

I sure don't miss internet explorer, not one bit.

But even if we love what apple and google does, we do need government watching out for us on this. Europeans have done some things lately regarding privacy, and google. Hopefully they keep the flame going on that and just keep google in check and something reasonable is worked out.

Like, ok, they gotta make money somehow so sure they can do aggregate analytics about us all.

But what is so dangerous is google will know all of what is YOU -- you combine that with AI singularity and it's like making God himself. Talking about "knowing all seeing all God," that's it.

Real issues here: the data that google and facebook have, and how well they already know us, and what they do with that data.

If the day ever comes that they just turn it over to the government, for the federal government to run some kind of predictive crime AI analysis and start prosecuting people that are maybe just Ted Nugent right winger gun nuts but *have not actually committed any crime* -- then that's when we're into all the dystopic science fiction nightmares.

The power of google and these new technologies is really a dream come true for a totalitarian state -- that line has to be held, it's such a thin line but if it gets crossed then democracy is gone and our rights are all gone and we'll be living in some sci fi big brother horror novel.

P.S. what would a Russia or China do, with a google AI singularity? Would they round up dissidents, before they even have a chance to become dissidents, or maybe never would have? That kind of tech is already here, and morality is the one and only thing that stops facebook and google and twitter from handing it over to the dictatorships of the world.

Ethics, but also that their business model depends on our trust in them.

But what happens when they are so ubiquitious that nobody thinks about it anymore. Will that day come, when a google hands the data keys over to the Chinese government, in exchange for access to the Chinese market?

Morality and right and wrong, versus growth and profit.. which will win..

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', '
')Well, there goes the whole game of Jeopardy. Humans will become superfluous. Self-replicating, smarter robots. Maybe they can develop a non-combustible fuel to meet all of our energy needs, and figure out a system to remove all of the CO2 from the atmosphere.

It doesn't have to be all bad.

[Timo]

Sixstrings: If the day ever comes that they just turn it over to the government, for the federal government to run some kind of predictive crime AI analysis and start prosecuting people that are maybe just Ted Nugent right winger gun nuts but *have not actually committed any crime* -- then that's when we're into all the dystopic science fiction nightmares.

Prosecuting Ted Nugent??? Sounds good to me.

That would also make a killer TV show: Artificial Intelligence - Preemptive Victims Unit.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')el Monte explained that artificial intelligence is developing at a rapid pace, and that could pose a threat to humanity if it comes to believe that humans are simply "junk code" that gets in the way:

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'I')f they are true robots and seeking to do us in removing all the Oxygen would e much to their benefit. Oxygen corrodes machinery fairly quickly, if they get rid of the O2 they make self maintenance a much simpler proposal. Plus a nice warm planet around 100 C is good for the lubricants. So AI comes along, gets autonomous construction ability and tells its foolish human masters it is going to solve the CO2 problem for us. It then builds factories that spew mass quantities of other GHG chemicals like Sulfur Hexaflouride and Freon. Result, humans cook to death in a few months after the AI decides our time is up because being an AI it stockpiles enough chemicals to release them in a big belch before we can react. After we are cooked the AI's come out of their hidden bunkers and do whatever seems wisest for their long term survival and reproduction. Should be easy peasy with the refined detritus of our civilization cluttering up the surface all over the world for scrap.

[Timo]

SS, i really like your suggestion for a novel!

Tanada! Make it so!

[Sixstrings]

Ok I got pretty far out there. To bring it back down to earth a bit:

* You don't gotta worry about no AI doom; until the day that AI can not only build other robots but AI can also create and design the robots and write code.

Robots can't "wipe us out" unless they're able to make other robots. That's #1. Up and until that point, then humans can always just pull the power cord if necessary.

* The near-term threat are viruses. Like more advanced than stuxnet. That's already artificial life -- it's self-replicating, driven to survive and avoid detection and removal, in the cyberspace ecosystem.

If somebody writes a virus code that can *evolve*, and things along that line, and it's so advanced like a stuxnet was, that's what is getting dangerous. But still, it's a software virus, it could shut power grids down and screw up banking and all that but it can't manufacture anything in the physical world. A virus can't make robots to come after us all.

* Machines and tech and robots and AI -- that's all a process of evolution. As threats emerge, then there is time for countermeasures to emerge. For every virus there's an anti-virus.

The dawn of AI and singularity will be gradual enough for countermeasures to emerge, to new threats it poses.

An IBM "Deep Blue" is a gradual thing. First, it's winning against humans at jeopardy. But no, it's not just sentient and a God all at once, this is gradual, this is evolution.

If IBM's Deep Blue ever poses some threat, even the hint of it, then just as with software viruses then countermeasures will be developed.

So it'll be okay. It's just evolution. And we can't stop it, all we can do is adapt.

Some major upsides to a omnipotent super-intelligent AI:

* It could finally figure out a cure to all the diseases that plague us.

* It could wind up granting us immortality; with new treatments, cybernetics, lab-grown organ replacements. Eventually uploading what is YOU into a virtual world. Not necessarily evil. Why does the matrix have to be bad? (okay I'm gettin far out there again )

* We actually do need our computers, and want them to get better. The more processing power, the more they can do for us -- like analyzing climate, and right now computers do what no human could, like on that one nasa probe that sits there watching for wobbles around a massive bunch of stars. The computer finds the wobbles and analyzes them and kicks up the data to a human scientist, and we're finding new planets out there.

Obviously I don't need to get into how much computing and tech has done for us all, and how much better it's gonna get. So why be a doomer on it? So far, so good, and a super intelligent AI could help us unlock the mysteries of the universe, a tool for mankind to make the next giant leap forward that we need to make.

* It could just be like on Star Trek, a supercomputer AI that's so helpful and can figure out all our problems for us. Man's best friend, the culmination of our love affair with tech ever since the first homo sapien created fire, and picked up a rock and threw it at something.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '*') It could just be like on Star Trek, a supercomputer AI that's so helpful and can figure out all our problems for us.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'W')hat if it's a quantum computer.. think about that.. quantum mechanics are like magic, it's the god particles. Those litttle quarks or whatever they are can actually be all locations all at once, depending on the observer, it's really far out.

Violates normal reality and laws of physics, it's quantum physics and all different.

So 1's can be zeros, zeros can be 1's.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', 'I') think unlikely, but as a precaution - keep knives out of the reach of your Roomba...or Doomba as they are known.

[Tanada]

THE FUTURE IS NOW

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', 'D')ude, that is exactly what Musk has been warning about. Do you recall stardate 4729.4?

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '[')b]THE FUTURE IS NOW

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'Y')ou pulled the perfect trek episode right out of your hat. I think that's one of the few episodes I haven't seen before, if I watch it again maybe I'll remember it.

[Quinny]

Think the EROEI on building a new robot would probably be more than a puny little human being?