Science and Technology Breakthroughs (1 Viewer)

[Huntn]

Warnings About Artificial Intelligence:
I think if not handled properly there is a real danger here. Ask yourself, what happens to the ability of people to earn a wage in a capitalist society, when AI takes over the role of the human brain? Accounting, banking, construction, every management position, etc, etc, etc.

I am getting a little ahead of the situation as it exists today, but I want to be an optimist, I could imagine us evolving into socialist Utopia where people spend their lives exploring their intellectual and physical potentials, not spending a life of sweeping the floors, digging ditches, or handing fast food to customers across a counter.

However this is tempered by my pessimistic fear that we are not ready, might not ever be ready, more accurately said: too primative to make this work for us, and not destroy ourselves in the process. The number one problem is us, too individualistic, selfish, greedy and often corrupt, not like an ant or bee colony.

14 Dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Built In

Dangers of artificial intelligence include bias, job losses, increased surveillance, growing inequality, lack of transparency and large-scale targeted fraud.

builtin.com

From the article the dangers:

• Automation-spurred job loss
• Privacy violations
• Deepfakes
• Algorithmic bias caused by bad data
• Socioeconomic inequality
• Market volatility
• Weapons automatization

As AI grows more sophisticated and widespread, the voices warning against the potential dangers of artificial intelligence grow louder.
“The development of artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” according to Stephen Hawking. The renowned theoretical physicist isn’t alone with this thought.

 

[SystemShock]

Every so often I see threads about tech replacing people, I sometimes I bring up the photo industry. Before camera phones, the photo industry employed thousands of people. Any decent sized mall had 2-3 different photo shops. There were 4 or so major wholesale photo labs in the U.S. that employed hundreds of people, 24 hours a day. All virtually gone because of smart phone tech.

 

[J-DONK]

Every so often I see threads about tech replacing people, I sometimes I bring up the photo industry. Before camera phones, the photo industry employed thousands of people. Any decent sized mall had 2-3 different photo shops. There were 4 or so major wholesale photo labs in the U.S. that employed hundreds of people, 24 hours a day. All virtually gone because of smart phone tech.

This opinion has been brought up twice in this thread. I started the conversation with a concrete real world example of what you say won't happen, actually happening.

I did that because I wanted the conversation to move beyond this won't happen, since you seem to be in the midst of it.

There are some heavy hitters in the AI space very worried.

Google AI pioneer says he quit to speak freely about technology's 'dangers'

A pioneer of artificial intelligence said he quit Google to speak freely about the technology's dangers, after realising computers could become smarter than people far sooner than he and other experts had expected.

www.reuters.com

May 2 (Reuters) - A pioneer of artificial intelligence said he quit Google (GOOGL.O) to speak freely about the technology's dangers, after realising computers could become smarter than people far sooner than he and other experts had expected.

 

[SystemShock]

This opinion has been brought up twice in this thread. I started the conversation with a concrete real world example of what you say won't happen, actually happening.

I did that because I wanted the conversation to move beyond this won't happen, since you seem to be in the midst of it.

There are some heavy hitters in the AI space very worried.

Google AI pioneer says he quit to speak freely about technology's 'dangers'

A pioneer of artificial intelligence said he quit Google to speak freely about the technology's dangers, after realising computers could become smarter than people far sooner than he and other experts had expected.

www.reuters.com

I didn't see a post referring to the photo industry. Maybe I missed it; who brought up the photo industry?

Anonymous Member started the conversation.

And it is not an opinion, it is what happened. Smart phones very much killed the consumer photo film industry.

Where did I say "it won't happen", and how do I seem to be "in the midst of it"?

What the heck?

 

[Huntn]

The money part IS important because it basically makes corruption close to impossible and those few who tries always gets caught.

I think there is a cultural element in what you describe as well. Not all cultures have the same balance between "ME" and "We"

"We" is a major part of social democracies as the one I live in. We recognize that somehow we are all interconnected and we all share a common responsibility for the society we live in. And "profit" and "we" works fine together when done right. I work in IT and my employer will send anyone home if they have booked 40 hours in a given week ( our workweek is 37 hours) - That prevents employee burnout AND studies shows that after 40 hours the rate of errors increases by 60% and since it takes 3 times as long to fix and error than to get it right initially it is a very profitable policy as well as being beneficial to the employees.

We also gets 6 weeks paid vacation every year and 4 of those MUST be taken and can not be sold. Again - same reason, Well rested employees have a far higher productivity, gets less sick and are more motivated.

Medical treatments are free. The sooner people get well, the sooner they can contribute to society again. If you owned a factory you would certainly repair a machine that breaks down, why not repair the person who work with the machine and may have years of valuable experience ?

Same with education - A well educated workforce create more wealth than a non or low educated workforce,

So as you can see there are solid capitalistic reasons for everything - even though most of those things would be met with scorn by the US republicans lol

Capitalism is a great generator of wealth, of note it was thought up by people, people who not only have good/great ideas, but are content to become filthy rich. Note, most of them if they become philanthropic only do so after having more money than they can spend.

For any capitalist system to survive long term, imo, arguably an automated future, a strong group sentiment is require that puts into place limits of wealth and the excess is funneled back into the group as an equalizer along with adequate social welfare. For this to work, corruption is intolerable, hence everything good I say in this post is most likely doomed to failure. I just don’t think we have it in us to succeed.

Anyway, my motto is let the best ideas prevail, let the originator of the idea profit, but only to a degree. They will still be at the top of the income scale, but they won’t be billionaires. In fact if I had my way. I woukd cap wealth at $10 million. Becoming filthy rich real does no one any good if we are interested in the overall health of the species and the planet. The problem with this, we are people, and most of us want to be like the rich people, a measure of success.

And since I’m blathering on about it, I am a big fan of the Star Trek Socialist Utopia. Can you imagine a life with the opportunity to explore your potential, instead of spending a life performing mundane tasks to feed, house, and cloth yourself as the primary motivator in your existence? Automation opens the door for this possibility. And I’m not saying everyone would spend their time casually indulging themselves , the leaders would still lead, but the emphasis would have to be on WE and our future

 

[Huntn]

Scientists create electricity from humidity

Beginning steps:

This New Device Generates Electricity From Thin Air

Nearly any material covered with tiny holes can derive energy from humidity, per a new study, opening doors to more sustainable power

www.smithsonianmag.com

Nearly any material covered with tiny holes can derive energy from humidity, per a new study, opening doors to more sustainable power