My random thoughts

[funkervogt]

One reason I'd like to have an ultra tough robot body is I'd be able to be around dangerous animals without risk to myself.

Imagine spending a year living with a herd of wild elephants.

[funkervogt]

I can't believe how dumb the workers at my local Home Depot hardware store are. The basics of inventory management routinely escape them, and half the time I go there, I have to talk to a manager because some item they're supposed to have 100 units of on a shelf is not there. And no, this isn't a recent problem that is thanks to the global shipping backup.

The aisles are disorganized, I can see lots of stuff that has fallen backward off the shelves, landed on the ground in somewhat inaccessible places, and probably been forgotten about by the staff because they don't want to bother crouching down to get it and dragging it out into the aisle to be put back in its proper place.

I talk to staff, and most of them are clueless (though a minority are very smart and helpful) about trades, home repair, or even the contents of their own store. If you don't know anything, then at least focus on straightening up the aisles and counting inventory. There's no excuse for not knowing how to do that, unless you're mentally disabled.

This kind of incompetence hits home how we're going to be eaten alive by intelligent machines someday. It won't be long before we can build robots that can drive down each aisle of Home Depot, visually count the items, and then move them around. Even if the robots took three times longer to do these tasks than reasonably competent humans, it would destroy tons of jobs (the robots would probably do this overnight). And what a good riddance it will be to some of these people.

[funkervogt]

Here are two, related predictions:

1) Robot chefs that are better than 99% of human chefs will exist by the middle of this century. They will be able to download recipes and prepare nearly any kind of dish so long as the ingredients are at hand. It will be common for restaurants and higher-income households to have robot chefs. This will change the dining experience, as it will become possible to customize meals to higher degrees, and to order varieties of food that one human chef couldn't learn how to cook well over a lifetime of learning.

And since robots will work for free, the costs of prepared meals will drop. Thanks to robot chefs, average people will be able to afford meals that only the rich can get today, and at elite restaurants.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginal ... -chef.html

2) Also by midcentury, your personal assistant AI will, through observation and collaboration with the robot chefs you interact with, deduce what your taste preferences are to a high degree of accuracy. With that information, machines could reliably recommend new foods that you were guaranteed to enjoy.

For the first time in human history, it will be possible for people to figure out, for once and all, what the very best-tasting meals are, at least according to their individual tastes. Imagine a billion varieties of deluxe hamburgers, each subtly catered to a specific human's tastes.

Such a thing would also undermine the social status that rich people in the 2050s would try to derive from eating dishes that are still too expensive for average people for whatever reason. For example, let's say "wild opossum and Great White fin sushi" gets popular among rich people because the scarcity of the ingredients makes it too expensive for ordinary people to afford. All the rich eat it and brag about it.

You, an average schmuck, ask your personal assistant AI about it, and it tells you that, based on your personal taste profile, you'd find that weird sushi to be inferior and less complex than your preferred macaroni, cheese and bacon pot, so you're not missing anything.

[funkervogt]

Posthumans will be able to regrow limbs and to recover from catastrophic injuries without surgery. And if they had brains distributed throughout their bodies, one posthuman cut in two could gradually regenerate until both halves were complete individuals with the same memories and personalities. Flatworms can already do this.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... lf/620344/

[funkervogt]

By 2100, these three things will exist for sure:

1) Multitudes of narrow AIs, often paired to robot bodies, that can do specific tasks as well as humans or better, and at lower cost. Countless jobs will be automated.

2) Cheap, lag-free FIVR that lets humans remotely control robots. Countless jobs that are now protected from offshoring because they involve physical labor will no longer be protected. The "person" fixing your air conditioner in 2100 might be someone in Africa or India, in their rented VR immersion booth.

3) Narrow AIs that can watch individual humans and recognize what they are doing and saying, from moment to moment. This will allow for highly accurate quantification of work output and work competency. The impact on pay, hiring, firing, and promotions is clear. The workplace would be more meritocratic and competitive than ever.

Note that I've made no mention of AGI. In omitting it and focusing on simpler technologies, I hope to illustrate how we're headed for profound shifts in labor and the job market no matter what.

[funkervogt]

A man in Norway went on a rampage yesterday (apparently fueled by mental illness and belief in the worst kind of interpretation of Islam) and killed five people with a bow and arrow. It's remarkable he was able to do that with such a primitive and difficult-to-master weapon.

Also yesterday, a U.S. robotics company unveiled a new combat robot that looks like a large dog with a sniper rifle on its back.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/ghost ... un-lethal/

In the future, when robots are common sights in everyday life and have superhuman reflexes and at least human-levels of dexterity, they will be able to use simple weapons and objects to injure or kill large numbers of us. Imagine a humanoid robot chef that is not stronger than the average human, but has much better physical coordination, allowing it to throw kitchen knives with enough accuracy and precision to hit something the size of a pie plate over and over again from 20 meters away. In the hands of robots like that, even a cheap bow meant for children to use could become an instrument of mass murder.

[wjfox]

One reason I'd like to have an ultra tough robot body is I'd be able to be around dangerous animals without risk to myself.

Imagine spending a year living with a herd of wild elephants.

Or perhaps you, yourself, could have your mind uploaded to an elephant's body. Actually be an elephant for a while.

Same with numerous other species. I'd quite like to be an eagle and go flying for a few days.

[funkervogt]

A few days ago, I called the clinic to make an appointment. A black lady picked up, and she had such an engaging, warm and happy personality, that I found myself smiling within a few seconds and noticed my own mood brighten. This was all the more remarkable since the called was at the end of the work day, when most people are tired and want to go home. I have no idea who she was, but she has stuck out in my mind.

Imagine how much more pleasant the world will be once intelligent machines run everything, and they're programmed to have personalities like that woman's. There would probably be a measurable benefit to the population's mental health.

Science fiction usually depicts future robots as being cold, toneless and obtuse, but I think the opposite will turn out to be true. They will be livelier, nicer, and easier to deal with than average humans.

[Redspector]

A few days ago, I called the clinic to make an appointment. A black lady picked up, and she had such an engaging, warm and happy personality, that I found myself smiling within a few seconds and noticed my own mood brighten. This was all the more remarkable since the called was at the end of the work day, when most people are tired and want to go home. I have no idea who she was, but she has stuck out in my mind.

Imagine how much more pleasant the world will be once intelligent machines run everything, and they're programmed to have personalities like that woman's. There would probably be a measurable benefit to the population's mental health.

Science fiction usually depicts future robots as being cold, toneless and obtuse, but I think the opposite will turn out to be true. They will be livelier, nicer, and easier to deal with than average humans.

Intelligent machines under capitalism will be used to figure out better ways to seize more capital for elitists. You should know better than this Funkerloser.

[funkervogt]

You need to grow up.

[funkervogt]

By 2100, these three things will exist for sure:

1) Multitudes of narrow AIs, often paired to robot bodies, that can do specific tasks as well as humans or better, and at lower cost. Countless jobs will be automated.

2) Cheap, lag-free FIVR that lets humans remotely control robots. Countless jobs that are now protected from offshoring because they involve physical labor will no longer be protected. The "person" fixing your air conditioner in 2100 might be someone in Africa or India, in their rented VR immersion booth.

3) Narrow AIs that can watch individual humans and recognize what they are doing and saying, from moment to moment. This will allow for highly accurate quantification of work output and work competency. The impact on pay, hiring, firing, and promotions is clear. The workplace would be more meritocratic and competitive than ever.

Note that I've made no mention of AGI. In omitting it and focusing on simpler technologies, I hope to illustrate how we're headed for profound shifts in labor and the job market no matter what.

Let me add this:

4) Narrow AIs that can assist humans with work tasks, allowing even a worker with moderate skills to be like an expert.

[funkervogt]

Portable GPS devices have turned every person into a navigation expert who never gets lost, even in totally new places. Likewise, AR glasses will turn every person into a master chef, car mechanic, air conditioner repair person, or any number of other things. Just follow the visual clues and verbal instructions your glasses give you.

[funkervogt]

I've long believed that modular home construction is an underappreciated technology. Mass-producing house "modules" in prefabrication factories, then trucking them to building sites and having workers connect them together would lower the cost of housing and reduce construction waste.

I'd like it if we used robustly-made modules that could be easily connected and disconnected from each other through some simple method like lining up the holes in the metal frames of two modules and then hammering thick pegs through the holes. Instead of demolishing houses once they were unwanted, they could be easily disassembled, and sold as is to people (maybe someone really likes the kitchen configuration), or sent back to the prefab factory to be gutted, refurbished, and resold.

Robust prefab houses that could be easily broken down and put back together would also make it possible for average people to move their houses to new locations, like these people did.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16471073/ ... home-lake/

However, it would be easier and cheaper since a prefab house could be moved piecemeal, and each piece would be stronger and hence less likely to sustain damage during the move.

[funkervogt]

Tori Spelling was recently spotted taking a heated phone call outside of an attorney's office.

The 48-year-old actress – who wore a baggy black blazer, matching black pants, jewelry and large black sunglasses for the Monday outing in Los Angeles – was also seen holding a notebook that listed a 3 p.m. meeting with a lawyer.

The topics of discussion listed included "assets," "support" and "custody."

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/t ... ce-meeting

The article contains a photo of Tori, taken outside the office. In spite of being taken from some distance away, the photo is of such high resolution that it is possible to zoom in on the paper she is holding in her hand and to read what she wrote on it, revealing it pertains to divorce matters.

These sorts of invasions of privacy made possible by advanced optics will only get worse in the future. A person with AR glasses could zoom in on you to read papers you had in front of you, or written text you were looking at on a computer monitor of even a smartphone screen. Built-in apps might even let the person read your lips from long distances, like HAL did in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It goes without saying that future AGIs will also have these abilities.

[funkervogt]

Our concept of "handmade" products made through "traditional" or "artisanal" methods will be undermined once there are machines with hands and arms that are as dexterous as humans'.



There will come a day when a robot in an industrial park not far from your house can make textiles through the EXACT same process and out of the same materials as those shown in the video. Imperfections meant to mimic human errors could even be deliberately added to the products.

Once technological unemployment gets really bad, and a "Buy human" movement arises, it will be dogged by major problems with counterfeits.

[funkervogt]

The movie Rememory is free on YouTube right now, and I'm watching it. The premise is that a scientist invents a computer-like device that can scan a person's brain, copy all of their memories--including memories they can barely remember (or not at all)--and replay those memories to them in vivid detail.



In the distant future, brain implants will allow us to do this, though I don't think the memory footage will be "crystal clear" as it was in the film since humans don't actually encode images in their minds with photographic levels of detail. It's fascinating to imagine what it would be like to get such an implant, and to lie back in sessions and relive what you experienced.

Your memories could also be saved digitally and passed on to other people, including your descendants. Imagine being able to experience the story of your entire family.

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

Thanks for posting this I'm going to check out that movie now!

I figured as well that is what brain implants should be able to do. Cyberpunk 2077 also touched on that with their brain dances. It would be nice to be able to preview such things.

[funkervogt]

The future is female, but the even farther future is androgynous since AIs will be in charge.

[funkervogt]

I've been watching the TV version of Y: The Last Man. The sudden deaths of all human males except one destroys most of the global workforce, including the vast majority of workers with some types of technical skills (pilots, for example, are overwhelmingly male). As a result, the impact on public services and business activity is as traumatic as the psychological impact on the survivors, who are all women except for one.

In 100 years, a similar show could be made if it were premised on the sudden, permanent shutdown of all AIs and robots. By that time, we will heavily dependent on them for even simple tasks.

[funkervogt]

The "time traveling" that the main character of Slaughterhouse Five experiences throughout the book, in which he vividly relives memories of past events, will be a reality one day thanks to technology. Mass surveillance and body-worn devices will record most of the moments of your life, and computers will be able to use those records to recreate most events in virtual reality, for you to experience again. In the farther future, brain implants will directly record your brain activity and your memories, and will be able to, through electrical stimulation of your brain, make you subjectively relive whatever past events you choose.

If you ordered your brain implant to "play" a memory, you might fall into what appears to be a trance to observers, while your internal mental state would be a forced replay of the past experience. You'd be lying still on a bed while, from your perspective, you were running along the beach as a child, feeling the wet sand between your toes.