Artificial Intelligence

cthia wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:
The reason I asked for credentials is that you were making fun of my opinions, as if you were somehow more knowledgeable, had more experience or were senior in the field, and that entitled you to use humor to cut me down to size. When someone tries to pull rank, I want to know what their rank is. Maybe it turns out to be someone I actually think I can learn from.

No John. I wasn't making fun of your opinions. But I accept that you feel that way. I apologize. Sincerely. I simply thought that it was funny, that you feel that pointer arithmetic was a problem, when in the 80's people loved the power it brought. I think that that's ironic. I wasn't making and challenges to your statement. Just an observation. I simply wished to share that bit of nostalgia. Many of my posts, certainly as of late, are done quickly. I have so many fires burning. As promised, I try and correct typos and grammar. It's not in my nature to be confrontational, although I can lose my cool just like the next guy. But I'll apologize, for the sake of decency, even if I do not feel I was responsible.

If you feel that I was belittling you then that really matters to me. And to you I say, forgive me. Please. Although it was not my intention, obviously it is what I achieved.

Something else. I really thought it funny your statement. Just funny. No aspersions cast, and I really was thinking that this was an opportunity to...mend fences with you over past incidences.

Perhaps I should be mindful of the tone of my own posts. I promise to do so.

Accepted. I also need to apologize for my tone - I certainly could have taken more time to cool off and find a more diplomatic way of saying what I wanted to.

Things change over time. 1980 was a quarter century ago, and the computing landscape was totally different. The internet didn't exist, mini-computers (DEC PDP-8, etc...) were eating into the mainframe's dominance, several popular micro-computers (Apple ][, etc,) were selling well, and the few people who were worried about good programming (e.g. Edsger Dijkstra) were in a distinct minority.

Back then, a "use after free" error was simply embarrassing. Today, with the tidal wave of hackers on the internet, the damage a simple oversight can cause is incalculable. We simply can't afford programming languages which require super-human levels of nit-picking care to stay secure, or operating systems that ignore all the principles of good security in the name of user convenience.

That's not just my opinion, it's shared by a fairly large number of people with actual academic credentials. Unfortunately, it hasn't lead to action.

Michael Everett wrote:

Heh.

cthia wrote:Okay, lemon meringue if you're going to throw pies. I always thought a good use of an AI would be to train on the mat. Instead of getting your butt kicked by Honor or Babcock. I know there are disadvantages to that. But it crossed my mind. I guess that's a bit of Laura Croft Tombraider.

Cthia, are you confusing AI with an android? AI generally refers to computers, not mobiles. You could have AIs running mobiles, but that is not the most important feature of AI.

Tenshinai wrote:You´re not thinking creatively enough.

Think about the kind of people that have grown up in "doctored" environments, nicely brainwashed... And how some of them have been used.

Normally, this is an issue limited in numbers because for someone to manage largescale, they either have to breed like rabbits, or start snatching babies from other people.
The second would get police pulled in quickly, and the first, far harder than it might sound.

Yeah, but cloning still doesn't gain you anything.

Fine, you create cloned embryos, but you still need surrogate mothers to carry them to term. It will still take them 18+ years to grow up, just like naturally born humans. And they still need all the same resources and still need to be raised by human beings.

You haven't actually saved any resources at all... nor made it any easier to hide.

JohnRoth wrote:Today, with the tidal wave of hackers on the internet, the damage a simple oversight can cause is incalculable. We simply can't afford programming languages which require super-human levels of nit-picking care to stay secure, or operating systems that ignore all the principles of good security in the name of user convenience.

That's not just my opinion, it's shared by a fairly large number of people with actual academic credentials. Unfortunately, it hasn't lead to action.

Are you talking about money problems e.g. accounts being stolen, identity theft? (EDIT: and that there wasn't a lot of money riding on computer security back then?)

I don't think there is any reasonable way you could get the public to choose security over convenience.

Lol, Tap n Go credit cards. Proof positive of convienence over security.

Heh. Got one. it wont work at all for any of t he accounts attached to it for tap and go, or swiping. convenience my donkey....

Annachie wrote:Lol, Tap n Go credit cards. Proof positive of convienence over security.

cralkhi wrote:Yeah, but cloning still doesn't gain you anything.

Fine, you create cloned embryos, but you still need surrogate mothers to carry them to term. It will still take them 18+ years to grow up, just like naturally born humans. And they still need all the same resources and still need to be raised by human beings.

You haven't actually saved any resources at all... nor made it any easier to hide.

Why would you provide the kids with anything as luxurious, wasteful and useless as a "normal" childhood?

We´re doing evil overlording here, the only thing they need is the ability to serve their master in whatever function s/he want them in.
As long as there is no real interaction with society at large, having what amounts to child labor is of course irrelevant for the evil overlord in question. Children can start learning the "useful" stuff by age 3-5 and become useful by age 10-15.


And no, normal birth isn´t a requirement. The technology for artificial wombs have effectively existed for a while already, just under such various patents and with so much social dislike of the idea that noone seriously tried to combine all of it into a working technology.

And "pre-birth" development can be speeded up, the drugs that can do that have existed for decades.

You can probably expect to be able to get physically 2-3 year olds from 6 months.

Post-birth development can also be speeded up, but not as much AFAIK.



What it gains you is easy access to lots of pliable minions to be, that also have the "stigma" of having been "made", so any halfdecent evil overlord can consider them as replacable cannonfodder, "obviously not REAL people"...


The only real limiter is that of education. You would want intensive, constant training and education(and suitably sprinkled with the proper propaganda brain washing), too much for a single person. However there are ways to get around this as well, but i think i´ve given the prospective evil overlords of the world too much ideas already...

The whole extended childhood and adolescence is a fairly modern invention.

kzt wrote:The whole extended childhood and adolescence is a fairly modern invention.

If by modern you mean sometime in the last 6 million or so years since the line leading to humans split from the line leading to chimpanzees, yes.

Humans have two more growth stages than other primates, one of which is adolescence. Other mammals are adults very soon after they mature sexually. We aren't.

That's biology, not culture.