Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve
Well shit, as long as we're talking in real time, let's get weird.
But yes, Asshole valley all the way. That's the thing is that if you had a human customer service representative in front of you and they were like, "I'm sorry, I can't help you," and you tried to appeal to their humanity or speak to their supervisor and they just kept staring blankly ahead and saying, "I'm sorry, I can't help you," that would be some of the worst customer service you ever had. But we accept it daily from machines because what are you going to do? They're machines. It sure is a nice way for the corporations to extract money from the public without having to interact with them directly, at least.
A few days ago I was chatting with a live chat customer service thing, and the entire time I was unsure whether I was talking to a person or a bot. Even if it was a person, they must have had a script that they were copying and pasting from, the replies were so boilerplate, but then there'd be these random "Wonderful!"s thrown in here and there. I seriously wanted to ask if she was a bot, but I didn't in case she was not I didn't want to offend. Stupid singularity etiquette!
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Originally Posted by lisarea
But GODDAMN IT NETFLIX the fact that ONE PERSON ONCE watched some stupid cartoon movie on my account doesn't excuse you to shit up my queue with babby movies FUCK YOU STOP IT AS GOD IS MY WITNESS I WILL SEE YOU SING DAISY BELL.
Oh god, you don't even know. I made the mistake of watching a Louis CK video one time and my entire recommended list of comedians which used to be full of women and gays and ethnic people got completely wiped out and filled up with white assholes complaining about how much it sucks to be white. I refused to watch another white guy do standup after that, and it sucks because Carlin is the shit!
Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve
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Originally Posted by Ensign Steve
A few days ago I was chatting with a live chat customer service thing, and the entire time I was unsure whether I was talking to a person or a bot. Even if it was a person, they must have had a script that they were copying and pasting from, the replies were so boilerplate, but then there'd be these random "Wonderful!"s thrown in here and there. I seriously wanted to ask if she was a bot, but I didn't in case she was not I didn't want to offend. Stupid singularity etiquette!
Certain kinds of call centers work hard to turn humans into meat robots.
Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve
1) I can believe that's what Wil wears as underwears
2) That is how some people might react to shirtless Wil Wheaton
3) I, um, might have a similar look of madness as Will Sasso when I find out Wil Wheaton passes away.
4) (sexist misogyny) If you can look at this photo and still think about Wil Wheaton you might be gay
So, you see, bing isn't as off with its recognition algorithms as you might think.
Most of them so far seem to go to the "[whatever] symbol" page, rather than the [whatever] page. It should be a simple matter of programming to make the internet consistent.
Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve
Well, that's nearly 4 minutes I'll never get back.
(And that guy's probably just going to get folded into the 'edgy white guy' module, anyway, so he doesn't need to worry about personally identifying information.)
Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve
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Originally Posted by Ensign Steve
And so then a whole bunch of "related" shit popped up. Not creepy at all.
It's almost as if the emerging technosphere wants us to be afraid. It's not very bright* yet but it's exploring.
* I'm pretty sure there will soon be AIs who believe in UFOs**. And think antivirus programs are dangerous.
** In the same way that someone defined homophobia as some men's fear that other men will treat them the way they treat women, is our generic fear of aliens and of AIs the fear that they'll treat us the way we treat animals and machines?
Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve
I guess here? Is it OK to put this here?
I guess just ban me if it isn't. That's the only way I'll ever learn.
So I've been stewing in my own juices about this stupid shit Marc Andreessen said for a while because almost everything about it is stupid and I didn't know where to start. Fortunately, someone else started:
The main thing is that I cannot think of a demographic I consider less qualified to speak about public policy than rich white tech guys. They're some of the most insular, oblivious people there are. They're rich, they're white, they're usually privileged in other ways, and most of all, they're lucky. They took chances and did what they want, and, unlike most people who do that, their efforts paid off big. They are exceptions. They're outliers. And they're so oblivious they don't realize it.*
Many of them, including Andreessen, have no background in anything BUT technology. They know fuck all about pretty much anything else.
And it shows when they use the term Luddite as an insult implying that the Luddites were fearful of new technology because they didn't understand it or something. That is not true. The Luddites understood technology better than most, and didn't object to the technology itself so much as they did the people who were controlling it. Using the term Luddite to imply ignorance just makes you look stupid.
Also, everyone needs to stop marveling at how smartphones are these massively powerful computers we all carry in our pockets. That is not really true in any meaningful sense. Smartphones are almost all locked down, walled garden devices that you can use to perform a limited number of predefined tasks. To do anything actually new with a smartphone would require a whole lot of modification
I am not worried about the robots. I'm worried about the people who own them.
It's mostly Ensign Steve.
* And/or they become those twisted kinda white American tech-sector Buddhists who decide that they somehow deserve their luck.**
** Memo to myself: Complain about this later in some other thrad or something.
Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve
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Originally Posted by lisarea
So I've been stewing in my own juices about this stupid shit Marc Andreessen said for a while because almost everything about it is stupid and I didn't know where to start. Fortunately, someone else started:
Wow that is a really stupid article and a really great response. Full disclosure, I couldn't get more than a few sentences into the crap one before closing the link, but I read the other one all the way to the end, and I almost never do that.
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The main thing is that I cannot think of a demographic I consider less qualified to speak about public policy than rich white tech guys. They're some of the most insular, oblivious people there are. They're rich, they're white, they're usually privileged in other ways, and most of all, they're lucky. They took chances and did what they want, and, unlike most people who do that, their efforts paid off big. They are exceptions. They're outliers. And they're so oblivious they don't realize it.
I don't know if this is relevant, but I am immediately reminded of this thing I read: Say No to Entreporn - Concordant Solutions
Cuz you know why? Guess who posted it to his facebook? This smart young black guy.
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And it shows when they use the term Luddite as an insult implying that the Luddites were fearful of new technology because they didn't understand it or something. That is not true. The Luddites understood technology better than most, and didn't object to the technology itself so much as they did the people who were controlling it. Using the term Luddite to imply ignorance just makes you look stupid.
I don't know a lot about the Luddites, I don't read the Bible, but I do ready Valleywag, so when I see the word Luddite* I assume whatever I'm reading is probably not worth my time.
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It's mostly Ensign Steve.
It's true! I confess. It's all my fault.
* it's in an image, so no finding on page with anything but your eyes, or possibly some sort of OCR technology built into your Glass, if you are not a Luddite.
Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve
I'm not so cynical as to reject it outright, as he predicts his detractors might do (or maybe I am cynical enough not to reject it outright), but there are definitely a few points that can be rebutted. Like how the bot that beat the "best of" our human chess players kept losing to him until it was programmed with that guy's moves specifically, and as far as I know there still isn't a very good general chess bot that could win against a bunch of good human players. Also he used Luddite wrong, which is a huge in this crowd.
My favorite part is how the one part that is "beyond the scope of this video" is exactly what I do.
In conclusion, yes I am happy. What this guy says is very much what I believe, especially the part about how it isn't necessarily bad, just inevitable.
"The AI does not love you or hate you, but you are made of atoms which it can use for something else."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, “Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk,” in Global Catastrophic Risks, ed. Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Ćirković (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 308–345.
Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve
My response may just reflect my own lack of imagination, but I can't imagine humans being replaced by bots in my profession. Not, at least, before I reach retirement age. There aspects of my work that can conceivably be automated, but the core of what I do is about human to human personal contact. I can't see robots replacing that aspect.
__________________ Old Pain In The Ass says: I am on a mission from God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable; to bring faith to the doubtful and doubt to the faithful.