Humans need not apply

[RaVaGe]

I have some issues, first, imagine a perfect world where everyone have the same amount of money to buy everything they want, everything.

There will be some problems, such as philosophical and material.

Imagine that you can have everything, is the money or the fact of having something will be something really necessary and will stay the key of hapiness ? A lot of people say that the money doesn't make you happy, and after a certain stage, I agree with them. So what will happen to our society based on the having when it will have everything ?

Then comes the issue of the materials, our earth isn't capable to provide so much energy for the 10 billion people we will be until then, we will have to divide each parts of the earth fairly, wich is really complicated.

I think that our actual society doesn't have anymore an objective for the future, and that everyone try to leave day to day as much as they can, I think we have to aply some objectives to 2050, by 2050, we will be able to colonize Mars, by 2050, everyone will have a robot etc. The fact of not having any objectives like it was the case of the year 2000, makes us stagnate in a keen interest for the present only. Although it's not really the subject, it draws really well our way to create the technologies nowadays, we don't create the technologies to serve our future, we create it because we want it now, without really thinking if it will serves to a better future.

And at this point, we could ask us if the technology doesn't makes more problems than it solves. In fact, it has been the case everytime, the fact of solving something will create another problem, based on the solution of the old issue, and in the end, the fact of creating a solution for an issue uniquely based on the present will make us stagnate even more in the present. That's why we need clear and feasible objectives for our future.

Now, where you say that the AI will kill us all and will take our place, i'm not sure about it. Imo the AI is still a technology that we created, like we created the nuclear bomb, it's not the bomb wich is bad itself, but how the human use it. Take a hammer, you can do a lot with it, in particular nails something on the wall, it's a wonderfull and really usefull tool, but still, you can crush it in the face of your neighbor. And the issue is there, it's only the human who put the condition to how to use the technology.

So, do we need robots that intelligent ? Isn't that to us to reduce the complexity of our way to do ? in a lot of fields, it's possible. We make it complicated because we have to give jobs to everyone.

Imo we need to look forward than our earth, otherwise we are screwed. Robots are a real solution to get further than our earth, and we have to use them.

Edited August 14, 2014 by RaVaGe

[Sentura]

I think one solution to the AI problem may be to make sure the AI has goals that are permanent and unchangeable. I'm not saying it'll last forever or that the AI won't be able to change this at some point, but maybe it'll change behavior for long enough to make use of it. But yes, the technological singularity is a huge liability on the grandest scale. It won't likely cause any disasters, but it will shift society far away from what we have now.

 

Who knows, it may even have beneficial effects as well. It'll be like a neutral god being able to judge all in society.

[Steppenwolf]

I kinda see us going in the opposite direction even if we hit some bumps on the way. Internet gives humanity unprecedented access to information and education, which in the long run will generate more "great people", or simply just more people doing the right thing.

 

That's just a nice vision you have there. In reality internet is full of bigoted shit, conspiracy theories, esoteric crap and people figuring out things to be offended about. The plebs have no interest in scientific or humanistic stuff that's available on the internet. The intellectuals are fascinated by political dogma and sideshows.

[Minos]

 

I kinda see us going in the opposite direction even if we hit some bumps on the way. Internet gives humanity unprecedented access to information and education, which in the long run will generate more "great people", or simply just more people doing the right thing.

 

That's just a nice vision you have there. In reality internet is full of bigoted shit, conspiracy theories, esoteric crap and people figuring out things to be offended about. The plebs have no interest in scientific or humanistic stuff that's available on the internet. The intellectuals are fascinated by political dogma and sideshows.

 

 

The internet is full of shit just as well as humanity is full of stupid people. But plebs don't improve the world. What I see is that the internet enables interested people (like us here on Mapcore) to reach their full potential and do nice things with their lives. Imagine where we would be without the internet? I would probably be back home being just an idiot doing worthless shit with my time. The internet enabled me to start a professional career as an artist and helped me acquire knowledge that would take me a lifetime otherwise. Sure, we are not saving lives here, but at least each one of us is helping our industry move forward. Tiny contributions combined have a large impact in the future.

 

Just as an example for what I mean, you are one of the guys who most contributed to my improvement as an artist. I learned a shit ton from you both artistically and on how to be a professional, and I'm sure you learned a thing or two from me. This kind of relationship would be impossible without the internet. I only got the chance to have a career because internet people like you helped me on the way, the same that I also helped other people.

 

We can now extrapolate that example to other communities and you can start to have an idea on the impact the internet is having. I imagine this same phenomenon going on in scientific circles too.

 

Of course, most of the people we know just don't give a crap and that's fine, that's they way humanity has always been and probably the way it will always be. We have this tendency to look back in history looking for patterns to have an idea of how the future is going to be, but in this case we don't have any parallels since humanity has never had such easy access to knowledge and has never had access to "higher" technologies such as nanotechnology and AI. We are now in uncharted territory and it is pretty fucking exciting if you ask me.

 

By the way, this change for the better won't come from our generation but if enough people keep doing the right thing and raising nice people the next generations might have a shot at doing things right.

[Steppenwolf]

You are right about that. But as much as the internet helps us to get together it also helps idiots to build networks. It's a force for good and for evil. I don't see it moving just in one direction that helps improving the human condition in the bigger picture.

Look at all the Europeans fighting for Islamic State. That wouldn't be possible without internet and propaganda spread via internet either. Or the way how twitter has deteriorated the quality of journalism. Even on more serious news outlets it's all just "some random guy said this or that on twitter. we don't know if its true but we will report on it anyway just in case".

[-HP-]

You are right about that. But as much as the internet helps us to get together it also helps idiots to build networks. It's a force for good and for evil. I don't see it moving just in one direction that helps improving the human condition in the bigger picture.

Look at all the Europeans fighting for Islamic State. That wouldn't be possible without internet and propaganda spread via internet either. Or the way how twitter has deteriorated the quality of journalism. Even on more serious news outlets it's all just "some random guy said this or that on twitter. we don't know if its true but we will report on it anyway just in case".

 

Well yeah, the internet brings the good and the bad from society. Whereas your points are valid, they're a drop in the ocean of the good that it brought.

 

Society is improving and growing at a faster rate than ever, the term Moore's law doesn't even make it justice anymore. The main reason of that is single handedly, the internet. If you compare humans to any other animal on this planet, the one thing that makes us special is the ability to communicate, and us humans are communicating more than ever due to the internet, it connected us in a way that whatever the outcome of that is in the future it can only be the outcome of logic and togetherness.

Also, there was a study around that proved that every 2 days we create as much Information as we did up to 2003, and that is absolutely extraordinary.

I am very hopeful and positive for the future, this communication age is the best tool that us people can use to weed out the scum politicians, the shitty practices being made in the economy and i'd even go as far as slowly annihilate the control systems put before us. (Such as religion)

 

More important than any of this robotic shit we see in the video, is the age of awakening we're going through right now, and again, all due to the ability that we have to communicate.

[Minos]

You are right about that. But as much as the internet helps us to get together it also helps idiots to build networks. It's a force for good and for evil. I don't see it moving just in one direction that helps improving the human condition in the bigger picture.

Look at all the Europeans fighting for Islamic State. That wouldn't be possible without internet and propaganda spread via internet either. Or the way how twitter has deteriorated the quality of journalism. Even on more serious news outlets it's all just "some random guy said this or that on twitter. we don't know if its true but we will report on it anyway just in case".

 

Part of human experience The irony is that evil usually leads to good things in the long run, directly or indirectly. Look at all the technological advancements made during WW2 and Cold War. A fucking war made us land on the moon, something that humanity wouldn't give a shit otherwise lol. Alexander (a tyrant) conquered most of the ancient world which ended up spreading Greek knowledge to larger areas. Genghis Khan (a genocide) unified most of asia, dominated a good chunk of the world and at some point forced European "barbarians" to come together to fight him. You can find countless examples like this throughout history.

 

The original video, although alarmist and scary, is pretty good in terms of raising awareness for something that's inevitable. You can't go against progress. What we can do though is to try to understand progress to be ahead of the curve. The kind of job we have now (sitting at an office typing on a keyboard) will be completely obsolete much sooner than we like to think. Once VR, biocomputers or whatever the new technological paradigm is going to be becomes the norm, there will be no point in "typing on keyboards" anymore. The same way that typewriters were phased out in a matter of years and thousands were left unemployed because they were specialized in typewriting. I don't think our job will simply cease to exist one day, but it will definitely change into something else and right now nobody has a clue about what it's going to be.

 

The thing is, you don't need to be on the cutting edge to survive progress, you just need to be faster and more reactive to change than the majority, which let's be frank, is not hard thing to do. 

[Jetsetlemming]

Three thoughts:

1) Good luck replacing my job (scientist), asshole.

2) I have a lot of trouble taking anything someone says seriously when they represent themselves via a stick figure man

3) People aren't horses (or stick figures). Creating societal roles for horsies isn't the kind of thing that is an obvious goal for a human society, unlike, say, creating roles for people.

 

I lied, fourth thought:

4) At least we can get jobs making youtube videos and raking in the ad money. In the dystopian future, Google will be the new Walmart, reigning as the number one employer. 

lol.

[2d-chris]

Oh it'll happen, but what I think many people don't understand is, things change, but very slowly ... and with time comes acceptance and solutions. Sure if all this happened in 10 years we'd be screwed, but it won't. If we can think it up, and it makes our life easier, it'll happen. It's not IF but when.

[Vilham]

This is only a horror scenario in a world of unregulated capitalism. In an ideal world the wealth generated by the robots will be taxed adequately and distributed to the population. Maybe then 20 hour weeks will be the norm and lots of vacation days.

That is pretty much what would be required. Can't imagine how much suicide there would be though, most people would be so unsatisfied with their lives I think.