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from the how-long-could-they-last-in-Boston? dept.
A little while back, I saw the following tweet:
I can print mostly. My wifi works often. The Xbox usually recognises me. Siri sometimes works. But my self driving car will be *perfect*.
The tweet has since been deleted, so I won't name the author, but it's a thought-provoking idea. At first, I agreed with it. I'm a programmer and know full well just how shoddy is 99.9% of the code we all write. The idea that I would put my life in the hands of a coder like myself is a bit worrying.
[...] The reality is that self-driving cars don't need to be perfect. They just need to be better than the alternative: human-driven cars. And that is a much lower bar, as human beings are remarkably bad at driving.
[...] Self-driving cars don't get tired. They don't get drunk. They don't get distracted by friends or a crying baby. They don't look away from the road to send a text message. They don't speed, tailgate, brake too late, forget to show a blinker, drive too fast in bad weather, run red lights, race other cars at red lights, or miss exits. Self-driving cars aren't going to be perfect, but they will be a hell of a lot better than you and me.
Related: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday January 04 2016, @08:26PM
>We have human workers in the first place because their labor is useful.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this. I don't know where to point you to get started. Look up work related depression and burnout, I guess.
We have human workers because they are cheaper than the alternative. Human life is cheap.
>And places with high unemployment rates tend to do worse than those with low unemployment rates.
Really? Places with more people without jobs, without money, without food tend to do worse? You don't say.
>we are changing our societies very fast and for the better.
Oh, certainly. I can't wait until the 1% own 100% of the wealth on the planet. I see no point to halting that growth either, got to satisfy that human need of swimming in a pool of starving babies. Even God knows all we need is more social inequality. Long live our corporate overlords!
>Where's our glorious post-scarcity society that is supposed to make human labor obsolete without making human lives forfeit?
What post-scarcity? We're still on capitalism, a socio-economic system designed to handle resource scarcity. But don't worry, we've got the "human lives forfeit" part down.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 05 2016, @06:49PM
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this.
How about this? Don't laugh. Don't cry. Think instead.
Look up work related depression and burnout, I guess.
You might have noticed that the world is a bit imperfect. Throwing everyone out of work without an exit plan is not one of those things that makes the world more perfect.
Further, I have to ask here about your comment, so what? So what if people are somewhat more depressed because of their jobs or experience burnout? They have many choices and if these things are important to them, they can choose life style changes that make work less depressing and taxing.
Really? Places with more people without jobs, without money, without food tend to do worse? You don't say.
I know. I raised an eyebrow when I heard that.
we are changing our societies very fast and for the better.
Oh, certainly. I can't wait until the 1% own 100% of the wealth on the planet. I see no point to halting that growth either, got to satisfy that human need of swimming in a pool of starving babies. Even God knows all we need is more social inequality. Long live our corporate overlords!
Gainful employment is the number one way the 99% get wealth. It also has worked for the past few centuries to do just what I claimed it does. To ignore that is folly.
The faster we can get human workers obsolete, the quicker we will save the planet. Think about it, this exponential growth will not be sustainable.
Where's our glorious post-scarcity society that is supposed to make human labor obsolete without making human lives forfeit?
What post-scarcity? We're still on capitalism, a socio-economic system designed to handle resource scarcity. But don't worry, we've got the "human lives forfeit" part down.
Read what I was replying to. Dude planned to jump on to zero employment without the infrastructure to support that.