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edge.org's Question of the Year: "What Do You Think About Machines That Think?"

posted by Blackmoore on Friday January 23 2015, @03:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the dreaming-of-electric-sheep? dept.

prospectacle writes:

Physicists, philosophers, professors, authors, cognitive scientists, and many others have weighed in on edge.org's annual question 2015: What do you think about machines that think? See all 186 responses here

Also, what do you think?

My 2ยข: There's been a lot of focus on potential disasters that are almost certainly not going to happen. E.g. a robot uprising, or mass poverty through unemployment. Most manufacturers of artificial intelligence won't program their machines to seek self preservation at the expense of their human masters. It wouldn't sell. Secondly, if robots can one day produce almost everything we need, including more robots, with almost no human labour required, then robot-powered factories will become like libraries: relatively cheap to maintain, plentiful, and a public one will be set up in every town or suburb, for public use. If you think the big corporations wouldn't allow it, why do they allow public libraries?

 
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday January 23 2015, @04:16AM

    by c0lo (156) on Friday January 23 2015, @04:16AM (#137137) Journal

    if robots can one day produce almost everything we need, including more robots, with almost no human labour required, then robot-powered factories will become like libraries

    Nope. Not in the conditions of capitalism (profit, the only and ultimate incentive which trumps everything).

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  • (Score: 2) by sigma on Friday January 23 2015, @08:46AM

    by sigma (1225) on Friday January 23 2015, @08:46AM (#137181)

    with almost no human labour required, then robot-powered factories will become like libraries

    With no human labour required, who's going to have the money to buy anything?

    Social change always lags technology change, but in this instance, the motivator for fully automating production is a little less clear. Most importantly, it would involve people with capital (power) acting selflessly and allowing the hoi polloi to live without wage slavery.

    That didn't happen during the industrial revolution, despite the best efforts of the Wobblies and it ain't going to happen now with this "meh" generation at the battlements.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 23 2015, @09:59AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 23 2015, @09:59AM (#137192)

      The optimistic way for that to happen (with everyone acting selfishly) is:

      1. The automation of factories continues. Robots are expensive, but they tend to get cheaper over time and they make much better workers than humans if you can afford them.
      2. Some sort of basic income [wikipedia.org] scheme is instituted. The reason for the owners of capital to support such a thing is that mass unemployment/poverty tends to lead to crime and eventually revolution.

      I can't say I'm very optimistic for that happening in the US, but parts of Europe seem more open to such ideas at least.