F6, oops, i didn't mean to imply what i did by my conflation of the end of biological life topic with the technological singularity idea .. yet, yup, i see it happened in the beginning of the one you replied to .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=108561425 .. sorry .. goofed that bit.
it's only basically the timelines of the total loss of human influence on earth due to robotic development and their own systemic evolution i'm hanging on to as something which could still be avoided .. even though, yeah, for sure your totally rational, sensible and logical argument as to it's inevitably (hope at least i have that position right) is clear and concise .. at least your 200 years is a bit more more palatable than the 2045 scenario of others .. :)
It's the warnings of others we've seen .. the understanding that there are real dangers ahead
(which they get to toward the end in there) .. that before the time the idea that one's grandchildren will never be able to look forward to having their own human grandchildren (some time before robots say screw you all in your view .. :) .. the idea that it could be avoided .. you do believe it is inevitable, eh?
One last as it does deal with the general topic and ties a few things in ..
Artificial Intelligence as a Threat
By NICK BILTONNOV. 5, 2014
Jamec C. Best, Jr./The New York Times
Ebola sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Bird flu and SARS also send shivers down my spine. But I’ll tell you what scares me most: artificial intelligence.
The first three, with enough resources, humans can stop. The last, which humans are creating, could soon become unstoppable.
Before we get into what could possibly go wrong, let me first explain what artificial intelligence is. Actually, skip that. I’ll let someone else explain it: Grab an iPhone and ask Siri about the weather or stocks. Or tell her “I’m drunk.” Her answers are artificially intelligent.
Right now these artificially intelligent machines are pretty cute and innocent, but as they are given more power in society, these machines may not take long to spiral out of control .. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/weekinreview/24markoff.html.
In the beginning, the glitches will be small but eventful. Maybe a rogue computer momentarily derails the stock market, causing billions in damage. Or a driverless car freezes on the highway because a software update goes awry.
But the upheavals can escalate quickly and become scarier and even cataclysmic. Imagine how a medical robot, originally programmed to rid cancer, could conclude that the best way to obliterate cancer is to exterminate humans who are genetically prone to the disease.
Nick Bostrom .. http://www.nickbostrom.com/, author of the book “Superintelligence,” lays out a number of petrifying doomsday settings .. http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html. One envisions self-replicating nanobots, which are microscopic robots designed to make copies of themselves. In a positive situation, these bots could fight diseases in the human body or eat radioactive material on the planet. But, Mr. Bostrom says, a “person of malicious intent in possession of this technology might cause the extinction of intelligent life on Earth.”
Artificial-intelligence proponents argue that these things would never happen and that programmers are going to build safeguards .. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2840815/ai-researchers-say-elon-musks-fears-not-completely-crazy.html. But let’s be realistic: It took nearly a half-century for programmers to stop computers from crashing every time you wanted to check your email. What makes them think they can manage armies of quasi-intelligent robots?
I’m not alone in my fear. Silicon Valley’s resident futurist, Elon Musk, recently said artificial intelligence is “potentially more dangerous than nukes.” And Stephen Hawking, one of the smartest people on earth, wrote that successful A. I. “would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last.” There is a long list of computer experts and science fiction writers .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction .. also fearful of a rogue robot-infested future.
Two main problems with artificial intelligence lead people like Mr. Musk and Mr. Hawking to worry. The first, more near-future fear, is that we are starting to create machines that can make decisions like humans, but these machines don’t have morality .. http://ethicbots.na.infn.it/meetings/kom/veruggio.pdf .. and likely never will.
The second, which is a longer way off, is that once we build systems that are as intelligent as humans, these intelligent machines will be able to build smarter machines, often referred to as superintelligence. That, experts say, is when things could really spiral out of control as the rate of growth and expansion of machines would increase exponentially. We can’t build safeguards into something that we haven’t built ourselves. Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
“We humans steer the future not because we’re the strongest beings on the planet, or the fastest, but because we are the smartest,” said James Barrat .. http://www.jamesbarrat.com/, author of “Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era.” “So when there is something smarter than us on the planet, it will rule over us on the planet.”
What makes it harder to comprehend is that we don’t actually know .. http://www.cs.swarthmore.edu/%C2%98eroberts/cs91/projects/ethics-of-ai/sec7_1.html .. what superintelligent machines will look or act like. “Can a submarine swim? Yes, but it doesn’t swim like a fish,” Mr. Barrat said. “Does an airplane fly? Yes, but not like a bird. Artificial intelligence won’t be like us, but it will be the ultimate intellectual version of us.”
Perhaps the scariest setting is how these technologies will be used by the military. It’s not hard to imagine countries engaged in an arms race to build machines that can kill .. http://www.stopkillerrobots.org/.
“If this type of technology is not stopped now, it will lead to an arms race,” said Ms. Docherty, who has written several reports on the dangers of killer robots. “If one state develops it, then another state will develop it. And machines that lack morality and mortally should not be given power to kill.”
So how do we ensure that all these doomsday situations don’t come to fruition? In some instances, we likely won’t be able to stop them.
But we can hinder some of the potential chaos by following the lead of Google. Earlier this year when the search-engine giant acquired DeepMind .. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/google-buys-a-i-company-for-search-not-robots/, a neuroscience-inspired, artificial intelligence company based in London, the two companies put together an artificial intelligence safety and ethics board that aims to ensure these technologies are developed safely.
Demis Hassabis, founder and chief executive of DeepMind, said in a video interview that anyone building artificial intelligence, including governments and companies, should do the same thing. “They should definitely be thinking about the ethical consequences .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=53K1dMyslJg .. of what they do,” Dr. Hassabis said. “Way ahead of time.”
F6, in your mind, are all those who cling to some faint hope that the takeover could maybe be averted just indulging in fatuous self deception? .. lol .. like umm, yeah, still me .. are we really like those living now who look forward to experiencing a heaven after they croak it? .. chuckle .. can't pick any unreal t'would be holes in your rationale ..
ps: thanks for your insight on Kurzweil and yeah, i agree Shivani's deserved what you you gave it.
IMAGE Police recover iPhone of rape-accused Uber driver
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police have recovered the iPhone which was provided by Uber to the driver accused of raping the 27-year-old finance company executive on Friday night inside the cab which she had booked through the company's App.
The smartphone was recovered from Mathura by a Delhi Police team which had gone there with accused Shiv Kumar Yadav yesterday in search of the phone. The phone was recovered at his instance.
Police have already recovered two of the three phones used by Yadav.
Uber provides its cab drivers an iPhone with the Uber App. Customers book a cab through the company's App. The system then sends a message to the driver of a cab nearest to the customer and when he accepts the 'assignment', his name, photo and other details of the cab like its registration number is sent to the customer through this App.
"The phone is an important evidence for us. It will prove that Yadav works for Uber which will help us prove the culpability of the cab service. It will also prove that Yadav was driving the cab which the victim has booked," said a senior police official.
Its GPS signature will help us corroborate the route from where she was picked, the course the cab took to reach the spot where the crime took place and when he dropped the victim near her home, he said.
The accused driver had dropped a message in the company's system that the customer has been dropped and then exited the App. He had then fled to Mathura.
Yadav, who was driving an Uber cab, had allegedly raped a 27-year-old financial executive, who works for a multinational company in Gurgaon, on Friday night when she was headed back home in north Delhi's Inderlok area.
He was later arrested from Mathura and is under three-day police custody.
Uber Banned in India After Medical Report Indicates Driver Raped Passenger
Jason Mick (Blog) - December 8, 2014 3:56 PM
23 comment(s) - last by bsd228.. on Dec 9 at 4:18 PM
(Source: EPA)
Incident follows two accusations of rape in the U.S. earlier this year
Riding-sharing service Uber this month finished tacking on $1.2B USD to its war-chest bringing its total venture capital raised to date to $2.7B USD. That funding round took the valuation of the smartphone ride-sharing service, which competes with traditional taxi services, to a staggering $40B USD .. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/uber-files-to-sell-1-8-billion-in-new-shares -- a figure that provoked ire from financial analysts .. http://www.cnbc.com/id/102249416 . But aside from criticism of its valuation on fundamental financials, Uber is facing more existensial questions of safety and corporate atmosphere in the wake of at least the third accusation of rape against an Uber driver this year.
.. AND ANOTHER .. which may or may not be in the huge multi-linked one just above ..
Chicago Police Investigate Rape Allegation Against Uber Driver
Reuters | By Mary Wisniewski Posted: 12/09/2014 8:28 pm EST Updated: 12/09/2014 8:59 pm EST
(Reuters) - Chicago police said on Tuesday they are investigating an allegation that a driver for the online car service Uber raped a female customer.
Chicago police said in a statement that they have been in contact with the woman as well as Uber personnel, but declined to give further details.
Uber spokeswoman Jennifer Mullin called the incident "appalling and unacceptable." She said the company immediately removed the driver from the Uber platform when it learned of the incident, and is cooperating with police in the investigation.
Mullin said that all drivers with the ridesharing service undergo a "rigorous background check."
Uber is one of several ride-sharing services gaining popularity in cities, despite opposition from taxi companies that typically operate under stricter regulations.
The Chicago investigation comes as Uber has been in the news for other issues with government authorities.
Also on Tuesday, California prosecutors said that a former Uber driver was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in the death of a 6-year-old girl who was struck in a San Francisco crosswalk on New Year's Eve.
On Monday, Portland, Oregon sued Uber to stop the service from operating in the city until it follows local regulations.
The same day, the company was banned from operating in India's capital, New Delhi, after a female passenger accused one of its drivers of rape.
The fast-growing company was valued at $40 billion last week after its latest funding round ahead of an expected initial public offering.
Chomsky toward the end is asked 'do you think we are making progress?' (lol, all but the conservative of conservatives i think would answer that with a yes, course, the very idea would have anathema to Donald Trump's campaign) .. and he said of course, and at the same time regressing (think global warming) .. it's a good listen .. his "technological singularity" position comes in about 19:20 .. sill, i'm guessing Chomsky if asked 'could it become a reality by 2045, or at least this century?' .. Chomsky would say, "hmm, possibly".
"as for us, our evolution -- even as we are now, we're still evolving, all by ourselves, rather rapidly in fact -- and uniquely in this time, for the first time, there are the added variables/potentials/likelihoods/realities of the direct, directed genetic engineering/optimization of us as biological life, and of the incorporation into/merging with us of technology (both mechanical/robotic and computational/connected/intelligent) -- so there are now multiple paths, in addition to/along with the usual and itself continuing evolving-all-by-ourselves path, by which potentially various both entirely biological and hybrid biological/technological successors to us identifiable as new (sub)species may soon emerge"
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