robotics : dreaming away on the job?

[Sherlock Holmes]

but, time doesn't stand still.
and the books you mention are a bit outdated (given the current pace of tech.dev.)

Yes, but I suggested for that reason, insights into what AI was initially concerned with and the kinds of problems that were tackled. Never dismiss a book because of its publication date, Einstein's The Meaning of Relativity is still the best book on the mathematical development of GR despite being published over 100 years ago.

these days, quantum technology is implemented in fusion power generator test setups.

Well we were talking about artificial intelligence not quantum computing.

i think AI and the rest of technology improvements will save us. from famine, from war, from Orwellian societies, etc.

Why do you you think that? The human race is destined to self destruct.

 

[peacefan]

Yes, but I suggested for that reason, insights into what AI was initially concerned with and the kinds of problems that were tackled. Never dismiss a book because of its publication date, Einstein's The Meaning of Relativity is still the best book on the mathematical development of GR despite being published over 100 years ago.

Well we were talking about artificial intelligence not quantum computing.

quantum computing increases computation speed by high margins.
that's why it'll be very popular in all western companies producing AI-based military hardware.

Why do you you think that? The human race is destined to self destruct.

nope but we'll probably be left with 500 to 2-thousand years of near-misses (read: (proxy-)wars) before we as a species can call ourselves 'home sapiens anglica', by UN intervention troops and a slight re-focussing on protecting everyone's interests, in stead of just our own.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

quantum computing increases computation speed by high margins.
that's why it'll be very popular in all western companies producing AI-based military hardware.

nope but we'll probably be left with 500 to 2-thousand misses (read: (proxy-)wars) before we as a species can call ourselves 'home sapiens anglica', by UN intervention troops and a slight re-focusing on protecting everyone's interests, in stead of just our own.

Every generation places trust in emerging technologies, I did once. But I was naive, I did not understand how power operates in the world. It is malevolent, ruthless, rapacious. Power exploits technologies in order to control and dominate.

Look at those little drones, nice little machines but now used to drop bombs on hapless soldiers. GPS was created for the military, AI is now used by the military, the human race cannot survive simply on the basis of technology, we must first stop hating and killing.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

I was born in 1959, grew up immersed in the Apollo 11 moon project. I was making radios and telescopes as a kid, fascinated by the future. The "future" used to mean exciting, utopian, breaking free, saving people from hard work, it was optimistic.

Today the "future" has a different connotation, worry, crime, social breakdown, mental illness, misery. People are changing, seriously changing. They are being morphed into uncritical unthinking consumers of gadgets.

I could walk into a pub in the 1970s in Liverpool and within a few minutes be chatting to people at the bar, laughing, discussing stuff. Today I cannot do that, when I walk in I see people sitting quietly staring at their phones, oblivious to others, even couple in love sit but don't speak to one another, glued to their stupid pointless little phones, that's where technology has taken us.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

This is a British TV program from 1997, an eccentric (Jonathan Meades) discusses how the future looked to us in the 60s and 70s and how that has changed, the optimism has faded, the disillusionment has increased. That was made 25 years ago and everything he says in the show is truer now than when he made the show.

It's worth watching, if nothing else at least you'll get some insights into British eccentrics!

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Feelings don't really independently exist at all. It's a construct of our introspective self awareness.

Otherwise it is just stimulus/response, like any plant or animal.

The concept of feelings derives from our ability to conceptualize a physical sensation and to inspect it.