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Posted: **Wed May 13, 2015 10:30 am**

GORDON wrote:Stephen Hawking says AI will defeat humans within 100 years.

http://www.techworld.com/news....3611397

I think it'll be quicker. Once someone figures out how to make a computer a little smart, big smart will be about 3 months after that.

Steve's full of shit on this one. Completely.

Speaking at the Zeitgeist 2015 conference in London, the internationally renowned cosmologist and Cambridge University professor, said: “Computers will overtake humans with AI at some within the next 100 years. When that happens, we need to make sure the computers have goals aligned with ours.”

Not a fucking prayer. Not a chance.

For example, Siri, an intelligent personal assistant that sits inside iPhones and iPads is underpinned by AI developed by Apple, while Google's self-driving vehicles also rely heavily on AI. According to the FT, more than 150 startups in Silicon Valley are working on AI today.

Ah. Fake AI. "AI." Even less of a chance.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2015 11:17 am**

I agree Hawking is likely wrong here, but disagree as to why.

I think he's right about the potential for advancement. But he ascribes human ambitions and desires that arise from our biological evolutionary history to potential AIs. There's no reason at all to think that an AI would have any desire for competition, or even for survival. An AI is just as likely to be ambivalent about the idea of it's own destruction as it is to desire to avoid it, or even to desire to bring it about. None of that is predictable to us now because we can only seriously comprehend our own manner of thinking, which is derived from the long-term fighting pit of evolution.

Posted: **Wed May 13, 2015 12:18 pm**

That's a good point TPR. I wouldn't say he's "wrong", but I think there's really know way to guess how such and alien consciousness will react.

Posted: **Thu May 14, 2015 1:28 pm**

Bots still suck.

Posted: **Thu May 14, 2015 1:35 pm**

A long time ago I speculated to Leisher and Cake at lunch that whatever tech we plebeians are allowed to see, the government had that shit 20 years ago, in secret. Which means they have shit now that will be new to us in 20 years.

I've wondered 2 things: what secret tech do we have that has kept nukes out of our overseas shipping containers since 9/11, and why, for the last couple years, are so many people chiming in that AI is dangerous? What have they seen that we don't know about when the best AI the public has seen is that super-shitty Siri?

Edited By GORDON on 1431624987

Posted: **Thu May 14, 2015 2:12 pm**

A long time ago I speculated to Leisher and Cake at lunch that whatever tech we plebeians are allowed to see, the government had that shit 20 years ago, in secret.

Eh, I'm not sure I believe that any longer. Do they have some nice toys? Yeah. But the thing that allows the NSA to crack encryption isn't some brand new technique in number theory, it's that they have bajillions of compute cycles, processors, and hardware farms just sitting around looking for something to do. They have the brute force to make "theoretical" into "practical" where things allow. Not all problems can be solved by more force.

what secret tech do we have that has kept nukes out of our overseas shipping containers since 9/11, and why, for the last couple years, are so many people chiming in that AI is dangerous?

Don't know about the first. As far as the second, it's trendy. The more people are exposed to stupid AI, the more their brains roll the concept around and let their imaginations run wild. Siri has done for armchair machine ethics what CSI did for forensic criminal science.

Posted: **Thu May 14, 2015 4:20 pm**

GORDON wrote:A long time ago I speculated to Leisher and Cake at lunch that whatever tech we plebeians are allowed to see, the government had that shit 20 years ago, in secret. Which means they have shit now that will be new to us in 20 years.

I tend to agree w/ Malcolm on this one. Back in the 60's and 70's I think that was true. That was in the back end of the phase where people generally trusted our institutions and believed in working together with these institutions for the common good. With the hippie movement and Vietnam and Watergate, we lost faith in those institutions and figured we're better off looking out for numero uno rather than selling our idea to the government and having them just dick it up.

Posted: **Thu May 14, 2015 5:38 pm**

With the hippie movement and Vietnam and Watergate, we lost faith in those institutions and figured we're better off looking out for numero uno rather than selling our idea to the government and having them just dick it up.

If ever one man in history ever made me mistrust the US gov't, it's J. Edgar fucking Hoover. He way overextended whatever rep and cred "the man" could ever hoped to have achieved. Every American citizen should be legally entitled to shit upon his grave the way he shat upon others' rights. Hippies came about because of assholes like that. He created millions.

Edited By Malcolm on 1431639579

Posted: **Thu May 14, 2015 7:55 pm**

Not that Hoover didn't end up causing a lot of distrust, but none of that really came out until after the counter culture movement had already begun (mostly because everyone was scared to death of Hoover). But the mood after Kennedy's assassination and the generation that was coming of that age at that time would have brought it about anyway.

Posted: **Thu May 14, 2015 10:18 pm**

Vince wrote:Not that Hoover didn't end up causing a lot of distrust, but none of that really came out until after the counter culture movement had already begun (mostly because everyone was scared to death of Hoover). But the mood after Kennedy's assassination and the generation that was coming of that age at that time would have brought it about anyway.

Hoover was busying being an asshole since the Great Depression. There weren't any hippies in the '40s.

Posted: **Fri May 15, 2015 6:13 am**

True, but he wasn't causing much public distrust at that time because no one knew what he was doing. He was considered a hero during the depression because he was going after organized crime. Plus, during the depression was the beginning of that same phase where people were starting to come together and trust the institutions. The depression started that somewhat, and WWII cemented it.

Posted: **Fri May 15, 2015 7:59 am**

Malcolm wrote:
Vince wrote:Not that Hoover didn't end up causing a lot of distrust, but none of that really came out until after the counter culture movement had already begun (mostly because everyone was scared to death of Hoover). But the mood after Kennedy's assassination and the generation that was coming of that age at that time would have brought it about anyway.
Hoover was busying being an asshole since the Great Depression. There weren't any hippies in the '40s.

The 40's were an aberration for normal social development. No one had the liberty to be a hippie.

Posted: **Fri May 15, 2015 9:47 am**

In the 40s the societal dissenters were generally expressing it by becoming communists. That didn't have the same political and ideological baggage yet that it had later.

Posted: **Fri May 15, 2015 10:23 am**

GORDON wrote:
Malcolm wrote:
Vince wrote:Not that Hoover didn't end up causing a lot of distrust, but none of that really came out until after the counter culture movement had already begun (mostly because everyone was scared to death of Hoover). But the mood after Kennedy's assassination and the generation that was coming of that age at that time would have brought it about anyway.
Hoover was busying being an asshole since the Great Depression. There weren't any hippies in the '40s.
The 40's were an aberration for normal social development. No one had the liberty to be a hippie.

There weren't any hippies in the '50s, either. Beats != hippies.

Posted: **Fri May 15, 2015 12:27 pm**

There were beatniks in the 50's, but they weren't a defining representation of that generation. Although they were probably hugely influential on the young that eventually became hippies.

Posted: **Fri May 15, 2015 12:31 pm**

Vince wrote:There were beatniks in the 50's, but they weren't a defining representation of that generation. Although they were probably hugely influential on the young that eventually became hippies.

I'll give you the second, not the first.

Posted: **Fri May 15, 2015 12:40 pm**

They did not define the generation. They were important to what came after. You are thinking linearly from where you stand looking back. In the 50's the beatniks were not the norm or influential to their generation. They became very important to the upcoming generation. When you think of kids in the 50's you think of the sock hops. The beatniks were there, but a minority and not largely representative nor influential with their peers.

Posted: **Fri May 15, 2015 12:44 pm**

Sock hops? Now who's thinking from here they stand looking back?

Greasers. The 50s were full of greasers.

Posted: **Fri May 15, 2015 12:44 pm**

The beatniks were there, but a minority and not largely representative nor influential with their peers.

Not influential? You're shitting me.

When you think of kids in the 50's you think of the sock hops.

That's one of the subcultures. There were plenty of benny-popping beatniks, too. No one gives a fuck about sock hops anymore. People still read On the Road.

Posted: **Fri May 15, 2015 12:52 pm**

Again, you're in some sort of loop here stuck in linear thinking. They were not influential to their PEERS. The people they went to school with. They were HUGELY influential to those that came after them which is why they are remembered as being as influential TODAY. Because the people that came after them are writing the history.

No one cares about sock hops any more, you are correct. No one really cares about beatniks anymore either. People may read On The Road, but the effects of NASA are much wider and that was a product of the straight laced conformist from the 50's.

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