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  #126  
Old 01-16-2014, 05:46 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

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Originally Posted by beyelzu View Post
Adam,

Because neckbeards dream of making a subservient woman. It is sexist precisely for the same reason it was chosen. A woman without freewill is the desire of a great many misogynists.
I get that. But, I guess my thing is, I can understand why someone might want a robot maid, and I can understand why someone might want a sexbot, but I don't know why the holy fuck you would want your dildo and your vacuum cleaner to be the same machine, because yuck, and I certainly don't see why you would want to put real AI in either of them, so that now you're dealing with another actual person and their perspective and wants and needs and everything when all you wanted to do was masturbate and/or get a load of laundry done.
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  #127  
Old 01-16-2014, 05:50 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

^ ok bey, text me when you're about ten minutes out so I can give the ol' pits a scrub

PS Ugh, screw you, Adem, for sneaky in-between poasting while I was carefully crafting a gross sex joke, but mostly for making me think about intelligent vacuum cleaner dildos.
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  #128  
Old 01-16-2014, 06:00 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

What I was originally thinking, before the diversion into making Pea think about how she, for one, welcomes our intelligent vacuum dildo overlords (you're welcome!), is that we used to have an economy that employed a lot of people as servants doing menial tasks, and we've pretty consistently tried to automate those tasks, freeing up the people who did them for other things. I think it would be super weird if we suddenly reversed direction and, instead of using better AI to enhance the way we automate things, just did away with those sorts of automation and just used AI to build a robot servant class. I really can't think of a legitimate use case for a robot maid that isn't some weird fantasy about living like old money. I mean, if what we really want are servants, I'm sure it would be cheaper and more efficient to put a dent in the unemployment numbers rather than spend a shit ton of money building robots.
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  #129  
Old 01-16-2014, 06:21 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

Cuz they get all mad at you these days when you fuck your servants. Thanks, Obama!
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  #130  
Old 02-27-2014, 02:44 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

Yesterday my radio guys found some article by one of the Google Directors of Destroying Humanity or something and got all ascared because he said that by X date computers will be smarter than all humans and be able to think and talk and understand stuff. Their rhetorical responses were "Why would you build towards something like that?"
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  #131  
Old 03-13-2014, 07:16 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

Are the robots about to rise? Google's new director of engineering thinks so… | Technology | The Observer

I'm smarter than Ray Kurzweil, though, because I know how to make coffee.
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  #132  
Old 03-13-2014, 07:25 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

My favorite thing about transhumanists is how many of them think they get to be one of the transhumans. No, sweetie, it's too late for us, whatever the future may bring. :pat:
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  #133  
Old 03-13-2014, 07:39 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

Ugh, yeah. I don't like transhumanists at all, but I don't worry about them because it's not going to happen any time soon, and probably ever.
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  #134  
Old 03-13-2014, 07:44 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

Agreed, and in the meantime there's a bunch of aging eccentric billionaires pumping all their resources into designing assistive technology to improve the lives of the elderly and disabled and infirm, and I'm like, "I bet immortality is just around the corner, you guys! Don't give up now!" :cheer:
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  #135  
Old 03-19-2014, 09:10 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

BBC News - Robot writes LA Times earthquake breaking news article

:freakout:

Quote:
"The way I see it is, it doesn't eliminate anybody's job as much as it makes everybody's job more interesting."
:lol: WORD!
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  #136  
Old 03-19-2014, 10:08 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

--Richard Brautigan, nineteen-hundred-and-sixty-fucking-seven.
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  #137  
Old 03-21-2014, 03:00 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

After watching that crappy horror movie, "Event Horizon", about a week ago (I had wanted to see what it was, and then got sucked into watching the whole damn thing), I'm not sure that I'd want my personality uploaded anywhere. Someone could take an electronic copy of me and do unspeakable things to it.* Making me feel all squicky about that whole multiverse thing, now, in fact.


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* Yeah, I know, "Event Horizon" isn't even about that. But that's where my mind went.
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  #138  
Old 03-21-2014, 03:54 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

I keep meaning to watch Event Horizon, because I've heard you can view it as humans' first attempt at Warp travel in the Warhammer 40k 'verse. So, yeah, obviously they brought back a daemon or twelve and everyone dies...
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  #139  
Old 03-21-2014, 03:57 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

:unnod:

I watched it for exactly that reason; the film does not disappoint in that regard. I quite enjoyed it, to be frank.
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  #140  
Old 03-21-2014, 04:45 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

OK, I don't regularly choose to watch horror films. "Event Horizon" seemed like those Pinhead movies (which I've never watched, but have seen snippets of here and there).

But, yeah, the gravity drive was cool.
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  #141  
Old 03-30-2014, 02:05 AM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

Okay, so I watched it, and goddamn the fit could hardly be better if it was planned. I also remembered why I haven't watched a horror/thriller movie in more than 5 years. Sometimes I wonder why I like WH40k so much, given that, but I guess it hits the Refuge In Audacity sweet spot for me.
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  #142  
Old 03-30-2014, 02:27 AM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

OK this is tangenting the tangent but I also like WH40k and I think it is mostly the fault of Dan Abnett, who manages to be a pretty decent writer; but it is quaint in some ways to see the model of a declining industrial revolution/ permanent war /gothic totalitarian god-emperor space state; a weird mix of science-as-magic, genetic manipulation, genuine advances, and everything else overbuilt steampunk rivets-and-iron mega-structures, mega-ships, giant hive war fabrication plants/ habitations. And definitely no AIs anywhere. Quite a contrast to other writer's visions.
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Old 03-30-2014, 03:40 AM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

I also like it as an example of the sort of crapsack universe it would be if there really were supernatural entities meddling with us, especially the sort of soul-devouring demons that religions like Catholicism claim. If such things are really out there, then the worst excesses of the Inquisition (real and in-universe) become, if not justified, at least justifiable. There's not much one can't excuse when it's an Immortal Soul on the line.
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  #144  
Old 03-30-2014, 08:19 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve



At about 2:13 she says "we're in the early phases of moving from being an information engine to becoming a knowledge engine".

:zoidberg:
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  #145  
Old 03-30-2014, 09:26 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

OK, so what is this thing?

Like the uncanny valley, there's this sort of asshole valley, too. A range of qualities of the interface for any remotely intelligent system that actually induces a kind of irrational rage.

So I do get frustrated and will even talk back to a command line sometimes, but it's a command line. When I do actually mean the hurtful words I say, I mean them for myself or for the universe in general or something.

But there is some point at which a computer interface starts presenting as just human enough that I start feeling genuine, personalized anger at its fuckery, but it's still not quite human enough for me to extend it any sympathy. It's just a stupid, smug robot that really needs to go fuck itself.

I have many totally valid reasons that I try to avoid Google products sometimes, but that is the most frequently visceral one. It's when it starts acting like it knows what I mean. YOU DON'T KNOW ME, YOU HEARTLESS AUTOMATON.

For me, at least, the asshole valley happens somewhere in between a self checkout that talks and one that doesn't.

Does that phenomenon have a name or anything?
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  #146  
Old 03-30-2014, 09:48 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

I'm sorry (not really) that I'm about to go all star trax on you, but there is this episode of Enterprise (directed by the amazing Roxann Dawson who played the Klingon lady on Voyager) where they find this fully-automated repair station which starts fixing their ship and then taking its payment in the form of crew members, complete with creepy body-snatching hijinks. It was the halloween episode, and so she wanted to make it a horror theme, and it creeps up on you because at first the station is all benevolent and too good to be true. Then it gets sketchy so little at a time that it takes them forever to catch on and by then it's too late. There's a scene where he's arguing with the system about his missing crewman, and she (voiced by Roxann also!) keeps going in a loop like "I do not understand that query" and it's completely pushing him over the edge. And she says in the director's commentary that that was exactly inspired by all our frustrations with ATMs and self checkouts and phone menus that make you press or say two.

Anyway, I'm sure there's way more better examples in like Kafka or Aldous Huxley, but I haven't read most of that stuff. Fake nerd alert!
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  #147  
Old 03-30-2014, 09:56 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

I was just thinking about that episode, too. The crewman that gets taken gets his brain hooked up to the station's computer and they discover that the whole thing is powered by brains in jars, all Matrix-style only slightly less stupid because they're harnessing the computational power of their brains. And I was thinking about what we were saying about the mechanical turk and similarly crowdsourced things and at what point do we really just become tools of the thing instead of the other way around?

I'm glad you keep me grounded, though, because my knee-jerk reaction is all "I don't care whether it's actually helping you, I'm just excited that it's learning!" and then I have to be all "but at what cost? At what cost?!" :whygod:

I would say you Bernie Madoff'ed me about that episode except that I'm already thinking about that shit 100% of the time.
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  #148  
Old 03-30-2014, 09:58 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

Quote:
Originally Posted by lisarea View Post
But there is some point at which a computer interface starts presenting as just human enough that I start feeling genuine, personalized anger at its fuckery, but it's still not quite human enough for me to extend it any sympathy. It's just a stupid, smug robot that really needs to go fuck itself.

:clippy:
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  #149  
Old 03-30-2014, 10:03 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

Seriously, look at the last line of the description of that episode:

As Enterprise warps away, however, some parts of the repair station that had been left in wrecks slowly come together and begin repairing themselves...

Creepy! :excited:
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  #150  
Old 03-30-2014, 10:41 PM
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Default Re: Ensign Steve waxes philosophical on the Singularity, a thrad by Ensign Steve

I know what you mean. I mean, I kinda love AI and goldang, do I love me some taxonomizin'. But I just get a little weirded out by wondering what's going to happen to people even in the next generation, and how they're going to stay a step ahead of machines, which is why I've concluded everyone needs to become a poet or something just because that's probably the last thing machines will be able to do autonomously.

But the thing about the Asshole Valley (yes, since you didn't know another term, I have planted my flag) is I guess this obliviousness to social cues and subtleties, combined with fairly realistic presentations. Like, as an example, my landline is a honeypot for elder fraud and related telemarketing, because a) it's a landline, and b) my heavily poisoned datamine shows that my dad, who would be almost 90, lives here. And the absolutely positively worst type of call is this robot that calls for fraudulent 'charities.' I am reasonably sure that it does voice recognition and isn't just a soundboard because it calls a lot and I do these impromptu Turing tests on it. So obviously, I think that robot is an asshole because I know the charities are fraudulent, and also I know it's a fucking robot trying to act human and OMG fuck that.

But if you go look at those websites where people report unwanted calls, it is EXTREMELY rare for anyone to actually notice it's a robot. Almost everyone assumes it's just a very, very rude person because it ignores social signals and responds too bluntly and it laughs super creepily. (Although according to multiple accounts, the ones calling for fake cancer charities will sometimes tell you they hope you get cancer. If true, that's obviously intentionally rude. I'm going to stay on the next time one calls and see if I can prompt that.)

It seems to incite a lot more anger in the reports even than the obvious and unapologetic robocalls where it's upfront about being an automated system.

So yeah, I don't know if it even has to do with being aware that it's not a human or if it's just that the social skills are so lacking.

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.
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