Fully automated vehicles - 'not in our lifetime'?

antrobus

GreatApe wrote: »

...Forget cars. This is the century humans go extinct. Whatever replaces us might call itself human but it will be as different from today's humans as we are from the single cell organisms that eventually created us.

Good idea. Forget cars, and everything else as well. If the human race is going to go extinct this century, then there is no point wasting our time doing anything other than getting p*ssed as frequently as we can manage it.

antrobus

Malthusian wrote: »

...A computer does not understand that death or failure is bad. Unless a human programs it into them. That is the fundamental problem that you are failing to grasp, that is the gap between what computers can do and what intelligence is.

A computer does not understand that 2+2=4, unless a human programs it into them.

Malthusian wrote: »

We are not capable of making a computer that can work out for itself that failure and death is bad. We are nowhere near rat level intelligences.

We don't have to. They can't think for themselves, They will work out whatever we program them to work out.

Besides, if we ever get to that point, we have the three laws of robotics. Somebody's already thought that one through.:)

kinger101

GreatApe wrote: »

What replaces us won't be biology

deFoix

The car pooling idea is stupid. No one will want to share a car and there’ll be no need to. For single person journeys a one seater lightweight carbon fibre electric car will come to pick you up. Way more efficient on energy consumption and fuel costs.

deFoix

A single seater car would take up a 3rd of the space of a 5-seater and therefore ease congestion considerably. Probably about a 3rd of the weight and way way more energy efficient.

GreatApe

antrobus wrote: »

Good idea. Forget cars, and everything else as well. If the human race is going to go extinct this century, then there is no point wasting our time doing anything other than getting p*ssed as frequently as we can manage it.

The problem is which decade of this century?
The actions to take are very different if its in say the 2040s or the 2090s

If its in the 2090s pretty much do nothing different while if it was the 2040s I would probably stop working this year and just draw my my savings until the singularity arrives.

I know this sounds implausible but its just a matter of time. Humans like almost all other species that have existed will cease to be and what replaces us won't be biology it will be a different type of intelligence.

The problem is the exponential function. Humans evolved to think linearly but our information technology evolves exponentially. What looks like a million miles away is very close if you accelerate towards it exponentially.

Its not all bad news we were all going to die anyway and this is our one chance at immortality. The risk is to the species not really to us individually. That is assuming it is benevolent and doesn't wish to spend its time eternally torturing us which would be a fate much worse than the non existence of death.

GreatApe

kinger101 wrote: »

It will come to pass the only question is when

Even human technology evolving at +50% a year would result in a larger number than there are atoms in and on the entire planet in less 300 years.

So there is an upper limit for you.
In less than 300 years humans will have information processors the size of planets and I suspect even the biggest skeptic would accept that a computer that big and powerful would be sentient and a super intelligence

Of course we probably don't need planet sized computers so its not going to take 300 years to get there. At some stage well before planet sized processors we will create a super intelligence and this super intelligence will be what takes over. It will grow and grow and bring to life almost all the matter in our solar system then the rest of the milkyway and then continue into other galaxies.

RichardD1970

antrobus wrote: »

A computer does not understand that 2+2=4, unless a human programs it into them.



We don't have to. They can't think for themselves, They will work out whatever we program them to work out.

Besides, if we ever get to that point, we have the three laws of robotics. Somebody's already thought that one through.

And I'm pretty sure most of the works of Asimov featuring the 3 laws end up with them being subverted and used against us.

System

kabayiri wrote: »

They really won't in other parts of the world though.

Look at the fatalities incurred amongst migrant workers to build the Qatari world cup stadii. The same numbers would generate outrage here.

Over there, it's an acceptable cost.

But that's humans killing humans. We are used to that, and accept it, the only differences being tolerance levels in different parts of the world and different cultures. But if we create a machine that has a mind of its own and starts making decisions about which humans to kill based on its own judgement, it won't be acceptable.

System

antrobus wrote: »

They can't think for themselves, They will work out whatever we program them to work out.
.

But that's the whole point, and the vital difference between artificial intelligence and real intelligence.


All great human advances have come about because someone has contradicted the rule that others can only follow because it has been programmed into them. Someone has said "What if ...?"


A computer will never have a flash of inspiration and ignore something it has been told to work out. It will never contradict a figure it has been given. It will never ostracise itself from its network to pursue obstinately an independent line of thought, reviled by its fellow computers. It will never be proved right 100 years after it has been martyred.