On the issue of jobs....

[Moonbeam]

This is where progressive thinking fails most completely. You see someone who's unemployed and think by giving them a check you fixed most of their problems, and that fixing "inequality" would address the rest. Well, we've seen the results of that thinking for the last 40+ years and there's more pathology, crime, and dysfunction in the poor than ever. No amount of money you give the poor will "fix" them, since their biggest problems have nothing whatsoever to do with jobs, money, or inequality. There's a reason why some of the most successful people on earth, people with millions and billions of dollars sometimes continue working and other times "retire" to follow other passions like charity. If you gave the people in Ferguson the kind of money Bill Gates has, do you think they'd suddenly become better people who are active contributors to society and actively work to improve mankind?

I already addressed that. I told you that from day one posting here I have stated that giving people money does nothing to address the issues of self-esteem that cause negative attitudes that create failure. That is an issue of self hate and has a psychological answer not pertinent to this thread. Kindly start a thread on liberal incompetence to address poverty and I will support your position, half your position there. You conservatives are even more daft in your notions as to what to do about poverty than liberals are, and most certainly equally so. The answer to almost every problem is some third way, the resolution of opposites, the collapse of paradox, in via a higher conscious understanding. I am not on any line between conservative and liberal. I'm not even on that page.

 

[BoberFett]

This is where progressive thinking fails most completely. You see someone who's unemployed and think by giving them a check you fixed most of their problems, and that fixing "inequality" would address the rest. Well, we've seen the results of that thinking for the last 40+ years and there's more pathology, crime, and dysfunction in the poor than ever. No amount of money you give the poor will "fix" them, since their biggest problems have nothing whatsoever to do with jobs, money, or inequality. There's a reason why some of the most successful people on earth, people with millions and billions of dollars sometimes continue working and other times "retire" to follow other passions like charity. If you gave the people in Ferguson the kind of money Bill Gates has, do you think they'd suddenly become better people who are active contributors to society and actively work to improve mankind?

That's why I see the "liberal" way of dealing with the impending lack of sufficient amount of human work as a failure. The current "liberal" thought is a the wrong cure for a problem they have misidentified. Tariffs on goods from poor countries, higher minimum wage: bandaids on an infected wound. Just giving people money isn't addressing the core of the issue. Even if everyone's needs are met without work, what will people do? That's almost a bigger issue than the meeting of the needs.

 

[moonbogg]

Are you assuming AI? Because I am not. I'm talking about nothing more than slightly more advanced industrial robots like we have working in our factories now.

I personally think we are an immensely long way from AI. I doubt we will invent a true AI in the next few hundred years. We are much more likely to destroyed ourselves fighting over wealth redistribution then inventing an AI.

Know what smog? I wish I could believe you. You know me well enough by my posting habits. You know all the silly stuff I like to get excited about. Its entertaining for me. I am telling you this is something different. This is not just entertaining for me, its a concern that people are writing off, and that's a good way to get caught with our pants down.
When faced with the best actual threat to our existence, how can you write it off as non issue because it may take a few hundred years? The time between now and then would get very ugly if we don't accept this. The pain comes from resisting the change. We need to accept the change and become our successors.
Everything gets replaced at some point, that is, unless it evolves itself. That's the key. When it comes to intelligent primates, they get replaced quickly based on history. We are competing with ourselves this time (our technological extensions and those who own them), so we need to evolve ourselves to keep up. If we don't, then technology will continue to get better and it will branch off as intelligent and leave us behind.
This means, in the near term, being willing to receive implants and modifications. Spending money on biotech research and enhancing ourselves, merging with the technology instead of watching it evolve beside us. It needs to be us.

 

[moonbogg]

Machines will never be able to do uniquely human functions functions like setting business direction, identifying new market opportunities, how to address consumer and regulatory demands and complaints, and tons more. Robots quite frankly cannot replace the "creative class" because that can't be programmed - at best you could develop some sort of Monte Carlo programming which still requires a human to analyze and create value from.

You're right. They won't be able to do human functions just like you can't do dolphin functions, or chimp social functions, or dog functions. Our replacements will have their own species specific functions, and human functions will be fossilized or rendered unimportant and totally insignificant. Human functions? Give me a break.

 

[BoberFett]

Machines will never be able to do uniquely human functions functions like setting business direction, identifying new market opportunities, how to address consumer and regulatory demands and complaints, and tons more. Robots quite frankly cannot replace the "creative class" because that can't be programmed - at best you could develop some sort of Monte Carlo programming which still requires a human to analyze and create value from.

Setting business direction? How many people in the world set business direction? 1%? Same for regulatory demands. Another 1%? OK, only 98% to go.

Consumer complaints exist because imperfect humans are behind the wheel. You complain when you get bad service or poor quality product. Improvements in mechanization reduce quality defects, and when your product is created by, sold to, and delivered to you by computers and robots, there's little room for bad service.

Some of you keep talking about creativity, but honestly how many creative people does the world need to produce everything we could want? Fact is, a vast number of people in this world do boring, repetitive tasks to earn their keep. Is driving a creative job? This country has millions of drivers from local delivery to cross country to taxis. Those will be obsolete jobs in 20 or 30 years. I don't see the world's taxi drivers suddenly becoming CEOs and setting business direction.

But keep believing the world won't change if it helps you sleep at night. Because as we all know, the world has never changed before.

 

[Moonbeam]

Machines will never be able to do uniquely human functions functions like setting business direction, identifying new market opportunities, how to address consumer and regulatory demands and complaints, and tons more. Robots quite frankly cannot replace the "creative class" because that can't be programmed - at best you could develop some sort of Monte Carlo programming which still requires a human to analyze and create value from.

Let me guess. You're a member of the creative class...with an ego so large it can't imagine itself being replaced.

If so than you have nothing to worry about. You can drop the subject and leave it to some of the best minds on the planet to address, which is happening, and no, I'm not one of them. My guess is that you are not very familiar with the subject. It is hotly debated in some pretty advanced circles. Maybe you can check the web for links. I thought this one from realibrad was good:

http://files.libertyfund.org/econtal...telligence.mp3

 

[Moonbeam]

That's why I see the "liberal" way of dealing with the impending lack of sufficient amount of human work as a failure. The current "liberal" thought is a the wrong cure for a problem they have misidentified. Tariffs on goods from poor countries, higher minimum wage: bandaids on an infected wound. Just giving people money isn't addressing the core of the issue. Even if everyone's needs are met without work, what will people do? That's almost a bigger issue than the meeting of the needs.

Joseph Campbell might have the answer to that: Follow your bliss.

 

[Zaap]

..merely observation.

Where are all these these jobs that require human creativity and problem solving? Please, list some jobs that are impervious to mechanization.

This is hilarious. Observation of what? The four walls of the basement you're obviously stuck in? To even ask such a mind-numbingly dumb question after stating you base things on observation is incredibly telling.

Yes, of course. All those evil Robots you fear so much are going to make business plans, hold meetings with each other going over them, secure funds for themselves (from other robots of course) then set up their robotic companies, do robot-research, marketing, advertising, conduct surveys and do their own product invention/design and testing. Then after they build their own products they'll of course sell them to other robots doing all their own shipping, distribution, inventory and then dealing with aftermarket and customer issues themselves.

Yep, out beyond the basement in the middle of some podunk cow pasture that you're clearly stuck in, there aren't office towers filled with people doing all of these things and more each and every day, nope- there's just robots doing all this.

Whether stuck-in-some grim alternate reality nitwits like you realize it or not, technology isn't going to stop marching forward just because you have a babified fear of it. Machines will continue to do tasks that humans used to- BUT- the more machines there are will just create employment in other areas involving those machines, and even create new markets and industries that didn't even exist before. (How many people were employed in computers and robotics in 1914, dipshit?)

Of course in YOUR tiny pea brain, those machines will just invent/design/program/make/market/distribute/repair and replace themselves, and your complete lack of imagination can't even fathom what I mean by new industries that didn't exist previously.

In the REAL WORLD outside of your sad little bunker, there will just be that many more opportunities for people to do all those things revolving around the machines themselves.

And of course people with no/lesser skills who want to sit on their asses whining about the guy across town who has more stuff than them will still live lives of poverty and hardship, the same as they always have, the same as they always will. There's no version of the future that's going to change that, not even the backward-ass 'technology stuck in 2014' bullshit one that you're wringing your hands over.

 

[Moonbeam]

Setting business direction? How many people in the world set business direction? 1%? Same for regulatory demands. Another 1%? OK, only 98% to go.

Consumer complaints exist because imperfect humans are behind the wheel. You complain when you get bad service or poor quality product. Improvements in mechanization reduce quality defects, and when your product is created by, sold to, and delivered to you by computers and robots, there's little room for bad service.

Some of you keep talking about creativity, but honestly how many creative people does the world need to produce everything we could want? Fact is, a vast number of people in this world do boring, repetitive tasks to earn their keep. Is driving a creative job? This country has millions of drivers from local delivery to cross country to taxis. Those will be obsolete jobs in 20 or 30 years. I don't see the world's taxi drivers suddenly becoming CEOs and setting business direction.

But keep believing the world won't change if it helps you sleep at night. Because as we all know, the world has never changed before.

I think the robots are already a problem. The world will change and I think the issue are addressing is whether we will apply our intelligence to steer change in a human friendly, rather than a inhumane way. I believe many of our robots here prefer to leave the matter to the machine of market forces rather than bring their own common sense to the table. They mechanically practice an economic religion.

 

[Moonbeam]

This is hilarious. Observation of what? The four walls of the basement you're obviously stuck in? To even ask such a mind-numbingly dumb question after stating you base things on observation is incredibly telling.

Yes, of course. All those evil Robots you fear so much are going to make business plans, hold meetings with each other going over them, secure funds for themselves (from other robots of course) then set up their robotic companies, do robot-research, marketing, advertising, conduct surveys and do their own product invention/design and testing. Then after they build their own products they'll of course sell them to other robots doing all their own shipping, distribution, inventory and then dealing with aftermarket and customer issues themselves.

Yep, out beyond the basement in the middle of some podunk cow pasture that you're clearly stuck in, there aren't office towers filled with people doing all of these things and more each and every day, nope- there's just robots doing all this.

Whether stuck-in-some grim alternate reality nitwits like you realize it or not, technology isn't going to stop marching forward just because you have a babified fear of it. Machines will continue to do tasks that humans used to- BUT- the more machines there are will just create employment in other areas involving those machines, and even create new markets and industries that didn't even exist before. (How many people were employed in computers and robotics in 1914, dipshit?)

Of course in YOUR tiny pea brain, those machines will just invent/design/program/make/market/distribute/repair and replace themselves, and your complete lack of imagination can't even fathom what I mean by new industries that didn't exist previously.

In the REAL WORLD outside of your sad little bunker, there will just be that many more opportunities for people to do all those things revolving around the machines themselves.

And of course people with no/lesser skills who want to sit on their asses whining about the guy across town who has more stuff than them will still live lives of poverty and hardship, the same as they always have, the same as they always will. There's no version of the future that's going to change that, not even the backward-ass 'technology stuck in 2014' bullshit one that you're wringing your hands over.

I see the baboon is back to show us his beautifully colored ass.

 

[moonbogg]

Let me guess. You're a member of the creative class...with an ego so large it can't imagine itself being replaced.

If so than you have nothing to worry about. You can drop the subject and leave it to some of the best minds on the planet to address, which is happening, and no, I'm not one of them. My guess is that you are not very familiar with the subject. It is hotly debated in some pretty advanced circles. Maybe you can check the web for links. I thought this one from realibrad was good:

http://files.libertyfund.org/econtal...telligence.mp3

I am listening to that now. I like that guy, the guest on the show. He said one thing that really struck me as startling and yet not surprising. The advent of real AI may be as significant as when physical matter transitioned into biology. I fully agree with that idea. The gravity of the situation is appreciated by almost no one currently.

What place would humans have in a world with something that has an IQ equivalent of 1 million, can think a million times faster than humans and has the equivalent of a million brains like that working together in parallel? Yeah, I'm sure we could convince it to be interested in human affairs. :whiste:

 

[Londo_Jowo]

I would get too excited over AI and the possibility that robot will be performing the majority of work/replacing most of the people in the workforce at this time as no one in here or their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, great great great grandchildren, or great great great great grandchildren will ever see this come to past.

 

[bshole]

I would get too excited over AI and the possibility that robot will be performing the majority of work/replacing most of the people in the workforce at this time as no one in here or their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, great great great grandchildren, or great great great great grandchildren will ever see this come to past.

If ever.... I write software for a living. I can't imagine a computer program that could have real intelligence, programs simply follow the instuctions they are given one byte at a time.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Robots/automated devices perform the tasks that they've be programmed to do, they can't perform additional tasks or change the current task without human intervention.

 

[moonbogg]

I would get too excited over AI and the possibility that robot will be performing the majority of work/replacing most of the people in the workforce at this time as no one in here or their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, great great great grandchildren, or great great great great grandchildren will ever see this come to past.

After a 4.5 billion year journey to get here, I guess having our story end in 500 years wouldn't be a big deal. So yeah, I guess you're right. Nothing to worry about.

Robots/automated devices perform the tasks that they've be programmed to do, they can't perform additional tasks or change the current task without human intervention.

What makes you think you need software to do it? Does your brain have software? Let me guess. You think your brain has software.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

After a 4.5 billion year journey to get here, I guess having our story end in 500 years wouldn't be a big deal. So yeah, I guess you're right. Nothing to worry about.

What makes you think you need software to do it? Does your brain have software? Let me guess. You think your brain has software.

Do you have any robotics or automation experience? Where is this brain going to be developed that takes the place of a logic based computer? Cyborgs?

 

[bshole]

Do you have any robotics or automation experience? Where is this brain going to be developed that takes the place of a logic based computer? Cyborgs?

LOL! Well played!

 

[moonbogg]

Do you have any robotics or automation experience? Where is this brain going to be developed that takes the place of a logic based computer? Cyborgs?

No, but I have experience in watching science fiction become science fact. I expect seemingly impossible, unforeseeable things to happen in the not too distant future, and copying a human brain would be one of those things with enhancement/restructuring to follow.

 

[Belegost]

Do you have any robotics or automation experience? Where is this brain going to be developed that takes the place of a logic based computer? Cyborgs?

Neuromorphic hardware is a good start.

And yes, I did my PhD work in machine intelligence, I'm quite aware of both the current state and a pretty good view of the future. Today we have systems that can learn small things, adapt within narrow fields, but the amount of learning keeps widening, and relentless advances in the area continue to broaden the ability of a machine to observe, integrate, and adapt.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Yes, I watched the US put men on the moon which at one time was science fiction. How did they get there and back?..........Computers and automated equipment programmed by people.

 

[moonbogg]

Neuromorphic hardware is a good start.

And yes, I did my PhD work in machine intelligence, I'm quite aware of both the current state and a pretty good view of the future. Today we have systems that can learn small things, adapt within narrow fields, but the amount of learning keeps widening, and relentless advances in the area continue to broaden the ability of a machine to observe, integrate, and adapt.

That stuff is awesome. Nice post.

Yes, I watched the US put men on the moon which at one time was science fiction. How did they get there and back?..........Computers and automated equipment programmed by people.

Your troll has failed. You've been owned by the above post. Also, your brain seems to be functioning, yet based on your posting your brain is not "logic" based either. You can't explain that.

 

[Moonbeam]

Neuromorphic hardware is a good start.

And yes, I did my PhD work in machine intelligence, I'm quite aware of both the current state and a pretty good view of the future. Today we have systems that can learn small things, adapt within narrow fields, but the amount of learning keeps widening, and relentless advances in the area continue to broaden the ability of a machine to observe, integrate, and adapt.

I have thought a lot in an uneducated way, about the how machine intelligence might evolve. I think I have seen robots learn to move around by learning from trial and error. That led me to think that if machines can learn from actions performed in the real world, they might learn such things much faster by simulation, learning inside a virtual environment based on the known laws of physics. Instead of say, building a machine that then learns to walk on real ground, a machine might build a virtual model and then learn to walk in a virtual reality. In this way it would seem to me that iteration after iteration of such computational modeling would lead not only to program for walking but a perfection in the design, a machine say that could change its design at will to sprint, jump, climb, roll, fly etc.

 

[Moonbeam]

That stuff is awesome. Nice post.



Your troll has failed. You've been owned by the above post. Also, your brain seems to be functioning, yet based on your posting your brain is not "logic" based either. You can't explain that.

I think Donald Rumsfeld did a pretty good job of it:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

I think this is one of the things that Londo doesn't know he doesn't know.

 

[moonbogg]

I have thought a lot in an uneducated way, about the how machine intelligence might evolve. I think I have seen robots learn to move around by learning from trial and error. That led me to think that if machines can learn from actions performed in the real world, they might learn such things much faster by simulation, learning inside a virtual environment based on the known laws of physics. Instead of say, building a machine that then learns to walk on real ground, a machine might build a virtual model and then learn to walk in a virtual reality. In this way it would seem to me that iteration after iteration of such computational modeling would lead not only to program for walking but a perfection in the design, a machine say that could change its design at will to sprint, jump, climb, roll, fly etc.

You see there? You get it. You understand the gravity of the situation. Machine intelligence is not bound by the slow speed of though that our brains are and they can do things, in principle, like the things you talked about. They could call checkmate on us pretty instantly if things got to that point.

I think Donald Rumsfeld did a pretty good job of it:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

I think this is one of the things that Londo doesn't know he doesn't know.

Since there is no "like" button, I'll just reply. I understand people's hesitation to entertain these ideas. It sounds like Sci -Fi nonsense at a glance, but its not. Its an eventuality to be faced. It just seems so bizarre that people are racing to get there. I find it really odd. Its like, it makes sense, but it sort of doesn't. At the same time, it seems necessary that we do it. Crazy.

 

[bshole]

You see there? You get it. You understand the gravity of the situation. Machine intelligence is not bound by the slow speed of though that our brains are and they can do things, in principle, like the things you talked about. They could call checkmate on us pretty instantly if things got to that point.

Yes it is bound by the speed that electricity can travel, by the amount of time it takes to flip a bit, etc.... you know that dirty little thing called physics.....