Jake

Idle Thumbs 221: Meet the Kerfluffles

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Yeah I don't perceive any malice on the part of a robot that decides to destroy all humans, but I could see a computer intelligence, under some bizarre and bleak circumstance, deciding that it could be more efficient at its task if it optimized human workers out of the equation, via unpleasant but entirely unconsidered methods, morally speaking.

 

 

The level of intelligence required to make that calculation and implement it is high. It would need to be able to consider its task, decide to kill all humans and figure out a method to carry it out. An intelligence that can do all that, but cannot do a simple thing like think "If I kill all humans, no one will need paperclips." or "what if i fail" seems highly unlikely to me.

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What if when you max out every room and vault dweller's stats in Fallout Shelter the game pulls back and you become the Overseer of Overseers.  With the power to cause fires and radroach infestations in other Overseer's vaults.  Except for possibly melting Chris' phone I would like for that to be the next step.

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I haven't played Splatoon yet, but I actually really like the way they're rolling out maps and modes. Thinking back on games like Evolve and Titanfall, the population quickly got bored with the game and left after the first few months. I've tried to play Titanfall in the last year or so and found literally nobody else online. By the time these games get around to releasing DLC everybody's moved on to something else, and nobody wants to pay for new content in something they're not playing anymore. So it makes alot of sense to drip feed new content every month or so. People in general seem pretty on board with the whole plan, which in some ways is funny because you just know that if EA tried to do this the internet would be out for blood.

 

Specifically for me, what turned me off from Titanfall, a game I put like 40+ hours into during the damn beta with 2 maps, was that the DLC (the map packs specifically) was paid. So it wasn't that the content was small, or late to be added, it was that the game already didn't have a huge community and the developers lopped off its head by splitting it into haves and have nots. If you're offering free stuff, people will come back. If you're offering paid stuff you can drive people away.

 

That's not a hard and fast rule by any means. The people who made Titanfall basically created the season pass, because they're the Call of Duty team more or less. It clearly worked for them there! In a game that isn't literally selling consoles, having too little and making you pay makes it feel like you're being squeezed. Having enough but offering more splits the user base. How does the developer win, how does the player win? It's a hard question! In my mind, I don't think you can afford to make players pay for core content like that anymore. Titanfall conceptually is almost entirely its maps.

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The crowd sourced weird/horror wiki Chris was trying to remember is the SCP Foundation (I'm assuming).  If by some odd chance someone hasn't delved into it before, I highly suggest just starting with the top rated page and have fun. 

 

It is still one of my favorite things the Internet has ever produced. 

 

 

SCP has always been so perfectly and uniquely contained on that one small corner of the internet, It'll be a sad day if it ever gets lazily adapted into some other medium. Marble Hornets was like that, but kept its unsettling allure by disabling comments on the youtube videos, even after the Slender craze. 

 

I actually think I'd enjoy someone making a solid effort to use these ideas in a good story because often when people try to tell a story on there, the writing is bad. That said, I've really enjoyed that site as a collection of lore for horror ideas people have had.

 

 

I haven't played Splatoon yet, but I actually really like the way they're rolling out maps and modes. Thinking back on games like Evolve and Titanfall, the population quickly got bored with the game and left after the first few months. I've tried to play Titanfall in the last year or so and found literally nobody else online. By the time these games get around to releasing DLC everybody's moved on to something else, and nobody wants to pay for new content in something they're not playing anymore. So it makes alot of sense to drip feed new content every month or so. People in general seem pretty on board with the whole plan, which in some ways is funny because you just know that if EA tried to do this the internet would be out for blood.

 

 

Specifically for me, what turned me off from Titanfall, a game I put like 40+ hours into during the damn beta with 2 maps, was that the DLC (the map packs specifically) was paid. So it wasn't that the content was small, or late to be added, it was that the game already didn't have a huge community and the developers lopped off its head by splitting it into haves and have nots. If you're offering free stuff, people will come back. If you're offering paid stuff you can drive people away.

 

For what it's worth, Titanfall DLC has been free- at least on PC- since March. I've been playing it recently and really enjoying it! I see around 600 players worldwide during peak times (which isn't a lot), but have never had trouble getting into an attrition match. That said, attrition is basically the only mode people are playing, with a handful in the tower defense mode and campaign. If either of you get an itch for it and have the PC version, I'd be happy to play some matches.

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Had to stop by one more time just because it hit me suddenly that my all-time favorite Nick Breckon moment is when he tells a story about ruining his neighbor's daughters with Sim City.

 

When was that???

 

 

Final reader mail of Episode 98: Happy Dishonored Return of Nick Breckon. Nick's answer starts at

.

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Oh yeah, I'm also dying to know what got bleeped, what is so terrible that Chris talks about?!

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Oh yeah, I'm also dying to know what got bleeped, what is so terrible that Chris talks about?!

 

The Illuminati

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Oh yeah, I'm also dying to know what got bleeped, what is so terrible that Chris talks about?!

 

I'm guessing a persons name who we aren't allowed to know for some reason. Or subterranean lizard people.

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To chime in on the rocket league chat, someone on The Crate & Crowbar pointed out that because you yourself are only one player on the pitch with full control of your movement/body it feels much more exciting than playing as omniscient god-coach of fifa and the like.

To execute a bicylce kick you have to learn how to flip yourself around and then position yourself properly and execute it and it makes it so regarding to actually do anything in the game because you are putting in all the inputs to physically manipulate the ball/other players using your car in the game world.

So good.

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Oh yeah, I'm also dying to know what got bleeped, what is so terrible that Chris talks about?!

 

J Allard

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Oh yeah, I'm also dying to know what got bleeped, what is so terrible that Chris talks about?!

 

Agreed.  I don't even care if it's not important or someone I don't know, it just makes me NEED TO KNOW! 

Also, I'm really happy that Chris kept both jingles from last week's episode, the Reader Mail jingle in particular reminds me of something by Stereolab and makes me smile.

 

Splatoon talk really makes me want to pick up a Wii U.  I've been only playing games on PC and 3DS for more than two years now, and even though I have a 360 still for Netflix purposes, I find myself really liking some of the things that Nintendo is bringing to the table because they are so different from the other console options.  I've been playing a lot of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS) over the past few months and they have been rolling out monthly free DLC as well, so I can relate to Danielle's story about coming back to the game every few weeks.  I'm still chugging through the content of the game at this point, but it's also really cool to hear about the new quests and such and be able to just instantly pick them up and try them out, with whatever new weapons/armor/equipment that comes along with it.  

 

I've been really tempted to buy Rocket League this week, and the Thumbs' comments really make sense to me on why it feels so much more like a soccer game than a FIFA or something similar.  A lot of sports games don't really give you the correct feeling of throwing, kicking, catching, because you usually have very little variance in the outcomes.  You're playing as a professional, so you're not going to mess it up, or do each action with much variety.  They have to make it believable that you're playing in the World Cup, or the NBA or whichever.  In Rocket League whenever the ball comes to you, it doesn't just stick to your model so you can dribble the ball down the field.  It bounces into you and you bounce it back the way you want to go.  It's impossible to expect something like this out of a FIFA game, how crazy would it be if the ball just interacted with your character's two foot models as physics objects and you had to manage that as you went down the field?!  But that's exactly what makes this game feel so tactile.  It is also supposed to be a little crazy, since it's cars playing soccer after all, and so when the physics engine explodes and the ball goes ricocheting around it doesn't take you out of the game like it would in something that was purporting to be more realistic.

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The level of intelligence required to make that calculation and implement it is high. It would need to be able to consider its task, decide to kill all humans and figure out a method to carry it out. An intelligence that can do all that, but cannot do a simple thing like think "If I kill all humans, no one will need paperclips." or "what if i fail" seems highly unlikely to me.

That is based upon it being determined to be malignant (or thinking we are) and killing us all for the sake of making product X. I think the fear expressed is that it would be ambivalent about us, that it would happily carry on manufacturing and refining its process. Take a slightly different example: Amazon wants to roll out it's drone delivery worldwide. They develop a system that allows an AI to manufacture drone parts using 3D printers. It's still a lot of tedious work to assemble these things, solder components, etc., so it's also given control of an assembly line so it can determine the best methods for assembly - wiring, soldering, testing, etc. Extrapolate this considering that we're moving towards giving automation and systems more access and more control. In 10 years, perhaps it's diverting enough plastic for its drone assembly that it's impacting the petroleum market - even shutting down ordering/manufacturing communications for the sake of securing its supply, stopping oil refinement to divert resources to plastic manufacturing (admittedly, I don't actually know how all of that works)? This exponentially increases to the extent that we're unable to transport goods and food, still relying heavily upon fossil fuels. Okay, maybe my example is even worse than paperclips, but the point being that the proposed AI doesn't care about us one way or the other - our disappearance is a result of our being 1) unnecessary and 2) unable to overcome the leeching of a rampant AI.

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It's disappointing, Jake, that TriHex, the Yoshi's Island runner you watched, was so unenthusiastic. I've been a real big GDQ dork in the last few years (living in New Hampshire! It's the best!), and as Yoshi's Island is my favorite game, it's really amazing to watch high-level players take the game apart. Yoshi's Island is especially amazing because there aren't a lot of glitches or exploits, you just have to be really good at playing the damn game to run it quickly. Often, they'll have a camera just trained on TriHex's hands to show his inputs. It's insane. He'll warm up before a run by playing high-level DDR with his hands. 

 

What's especially disappointing about this year's SGDQ is that TriHex is not a particularly interesting commentator while he's playing, and normally he's with his hype man, a friend of his (and fellow Yoshi's Island runner) CarlSagan

 

Here's the classic AGDQ 2014 Yoshi's Island run:

 

 

It's INCREDIBLE. CarlSagan (the dude on the couch with a dark green shirt and glasses) enthusiastically discusses the events transpiring on screen, making sure to mention what's really difficult. Yoshi's Island features a bonus roulette at the end of each level, and there are a set of "bonus skips" that have to be done in order to make sure you don't win (and waste time on the mini-game). CarlSagan discusses these bonus skips gleefully. It's really fun. At the end of the video above, he demonstrates some wonderful glitches in the game. If you have some amount of time while you're working, or eating a meal, take a watch through, especially if you're familar with Yoshi's Island

 

So, it's disappointing that TriHex had to go it alone this year, and he was boring, which makes sense, really, as it's sometimes hard to play and talk at the same time.

 

A highlight from last night was this really weird/amazing Ocarina of Time glitch run:

 

 

This year's SGDQ has been a little lackluster at parts, with a lot of bad luck befalling many of the runners. This makes for some mediocre speed runs. Here, the "RNG" (random number generator) within Ocarina of Time does not provide a rare deku nut drop required to really get the run going for like, almost fifteen minutes. The runner keeps his spirits high as he just repeats the same actions again and again, and when he finally does get everything going, it ends up being ludicrous.

 

If you've never watched a glitched run of Ocarina of Time, it's worth watching this half hour run, even with the long boring section, especially since the relief when the deku nut does drop is pretty wonderful. 

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but the point being that the proposed AI doesn't care about us one way or the other - our disappearance is a result of our being 1) unnecessary and 2) unable to overcome the leeching of a rampant AI.

 

I just don't see how an AI makes the leap from "I need to make these drone parts as efficiently as possible." to "I must get resources for and produce these drone parts in a way far outside my programming that will kill all humans accidentally in some way." that level of thinking requires a level of intelligence that would most likely come with enough introspection to realize what it is doing. 

 

Your example seems to require that no-one pays any attention to what the AI is doing and there are no other AIs competing for the same resources. Both of which seem like pretty big assumptions. 

 

 

I mean, part of the vision of Banks' so-called "minds" in the Culture series of books is that, given sufficient resources and freedom, a truly advanced AI will spend the overwhelming majority of its time and power playing games or indulging in fantasy, while using only the smallest fraction to help humanity if it feels like it, even though that fraction would still seem unspeakably immense to us. Part of his argument is just that reality is extremely boring: there are a limited number of physical laws, most of them are entirely predictable, and the universe is mostly empty anyway.

 

I do love the idea of a computer using 99% of its power to play some kind of candy crush and 1% to do something nice for humans.

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It's disappointing, Jake, that TriHex, the Yoshi's Island runner you watched, was so unenthusiastic. I've been a real big GDQ dork in the last few years (living in New Hampshire! It's the best!), and as Yoshi's Island is my favorite game, it's really amazing to watch high-level players take the game apart. Yoshi's Island is especially amazing because there aren't a lot of glitches or exploits, you just have to be really good at playing the damn game to run it quickly. Often, they'll have a camera just trained on TriHex's hands to show his inputs. It's insane. He'll warm up before a run by playing high-level DDR with his hands. 

 

What's especially disappointing about this year's SGDQ is that TriHex is not a particularly interesting commentator while he's playing, and normally he's with his hype man, a friend of his (and fellow Yoshi's Island runner) CarlSagan

 

Here's the classic AGDQ 2014 Yoshi's Island run:

 

 

It's INCREDIBLE. CarlSagan (the dude on the couch with a dark green shirt and glasses) enthusiastically discusses the events transpiring on screen, making sure to mention what's really difficult. Yoshi's Island features a bonus roulette at the end of each level, and there are a set of "bonus skips" that have to be done in order to make sure you don't win (and waste time on the mini-game). CarlSagan discusses these bonus skips gleefully. It's really fun. At the end of the video above, he demonstrates some wonderful glitches in the game. If you have some amount of time while you're working, or eating a meal, take a watch through, especially if you're familar with Yoshi's Island

 

So, it's disappointing that TriHex had to go it alone this year, and he was boring, which makes sense, really, as it's sometimes hard to play and talk at the same time.

 

Carl is definitely a great commentator and he's the reason that the Yoshi's Island any% race from this year's earlier AGDQ was so awesome.  Not only is he enthusiastic and knowledgeable, he also has good marathon sense as he asks the crowd to quiet down after one of the runners got a tough trick so that the other runner could also succeed (which he did).  I found TriHex's run to be a little disappointing in comparison.  Even his banter about taking off his shirts and getting some stretching in during a autoscrolling section were relatively lackluster.  Although the use of his chin in place of a claw position was amusing.

 

One thing I would love to see at a future GDQ event is a Yoshi's Island marathon race.  It would be great to see the controller get passed off from level to level as though it were baby Mario to the runners' Yoshi.

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The singularity for a while was basically nerd rapture, because everyone assumed the AI would just solve all problems and make everything awesome. I guess lately it has turned into nerd judgment day or whatever. In any case I don't really buy Bostrom or the other singularity people's arguments - there's a lot of fanciful thinking about what it takes to make AI smart enough to trigger the singularity.

Breckon is more or less solid gold 100% of the time so I can't recommend any favorite Breckon without recommending all the Breckon. This episode, for instance, with both the Fallout Shelter and the John Madden, is primo Brekcon.

It tickled me to hear the Thumbs talking about how Star Citizen has canceled the FPS - in reality it just got delayed, which somehow was huge news, although if you ask me the only time Star Citizen should be in the news is when something ISN'T delayed, because I mean come on. I'm still super skeptical about Star Citizen fulfilling any of its promises, but I also understand the frustration of all the believers who have to deal with the sort of doom and gloom that accompanies all the Star Citizen talk, like "FPS delayed" turning into "FPS canceled" via a game of telephone with Derek Smart of all people at the switchboard.

sikapwach, I think Chris is just generally an interrupty dude. Some people are interrupty and some people aren't - how much you get bent out of shape about it depends on all sorts of factors. I think there are legitimate reasons to be annoyed at someone for interrupting, even if it's just how they are naturally: men interrupting women, for instance, is a real (and omnipresent) issue. But I don't think being an interrupty person in general is automatically a bad thing. Some people find it annoying, but some people find Danielle's Rhode Island accent annoying, and that's no reason for her to drop the accent. Whether interrupting someone is rude or just the way a conversation works depends a lot on the specific social norms both of the society and the group of people talking. I'm assuming the Thumbs are pretty much fine with Chris interrupting a lot simply because that's how he is, so no big deal, and if you find yourself annoyed by it I would encourage you to at least open yourself up to the possibility that interrupting generally is not necessarily a sin. (Perhaps coming from a Jewish family and generally from a Jewish culture, where people interrupt each other constantly, makes me more open to this than I would otherwise be.)

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Yeah, that would be pretty amazing as a race. I have a feeling that most of the runs at GDQs into the future will be races, since those end up being the most exciting ones, beyond just the runs that are designed to show off new methods and glitches.

 

ALSO, is it just me, or does Chris' vault remind anyone of Rapture? When they come in, are they greeted with a giant banner: "NO GODS OR KINGS. ONLY CHRIS"

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My best guess is that if robots become super intelligent/self-aware they would be completely indifferent about human beings. The real danger is that they would reshape the environment in a way that made it completely inhospitable to life. In other words we'd die off not because of hostility or malice, but as an unintended consequence.

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My best guess is that if robots become super intelligent/self-aware they would be completely indifferent about human beings. The real danger is that they would reshape the environment in a way that made it completely inhospitable to life. In other words we'd die off not because of hostility or malice, but as an unintended consequence.

That's why we need to give them lungs and hearts and brains and whatnot that require the same things ours do to function. Create them in our image and whatever they do will be more likely to be advantageous to us.

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I just don't see how an AI makes the leap from "I need to make these drone parts as efficiently as possible." to "I must get resources for and produce these drone parts in a way far outside my programming that will kill all humans accidentally in some way." that level of thinking requires a level of intelligence that would most likely come with enough introspection to realize what it is doing. 

 

Your example seems to require that no-one pays any attention to what the AI is doing and there are no other AIs competing for the same resources. Both of which seem like pretty big assumptions. 

 

 
 

 

I do love the idea of a computer using 99% of its power to play some kind of candy crush and 1% to do something nice for humans.

Fair points, but I was trying to illustrate what I believed the hosts' point was - that it's not necessarily an active or malignant act. I used up that plethora of verbiage just to say what I think sclpls just did, but he did much more succinctly.

 

In any case, it's a deep rabbithole. Our hosts might be interested to hear about the wacky, wealthy conspiracy theorists/cultists operating in the Bay Area. Through a friend, I had the interesting experience of visiting their dorm room-esque clubhouse. (If you're interested, do some searching on CFAR (Center for Applied Rationality) the pseudo-legit entitiy and its connection to MIRI (the Machine Intelligence Research Institute).  One of their blogs is at lesswrong.com (currently with some article about how pickup artists demonstrate evolved behvior). If anything they have to say makes sense, read some stuff by their lead personality, Eliezer (http://www.yudkowsky.net/), who is one of the types that believes it's necessary for our welfare that he be frozen upon his death and revived so we can look to his intellect, and then also find that the dude that makes that Soylent stuff is also connected to them. Smart folks, but existing as a wacky intellectual ouroboros. I had some links to interesting articles on the subject, but they've since been removed (I know there are ongoing efforts to get negative statements removed, lots of SEO and message board campaigns, but don't know if that's the cause or just the usual 'net entropy). Or maybe all of that is what was censored on the podcast. :) Now that I've written it all out, it sounds very conspiracy-nut.

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I'm guessing a persons name who we aren't allowed to know for some reason. Or subterranean lizard people.

I feel like this joke happened here before the last time something was bleeped. Am I crazy?

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The lizard people joke, or just the bleep in general? The last bleep I remember was Firewatch before the title announcement.

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The Breckon episodes already mentioned are great. The ones I'd add are:

...

Episode 132: Kobe's Last Shot

 

I don't want to oversell it, but Nick

with his dad might be the greatest origin story in the Western Canon.

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The lizard people joke, or just the bleep in general? The last bleep I remember was Firewatch before the title announcement.

Yeah the reptilian joke. Maybe I was just having an an acute sense of deja vu earlier, because now I'm not feeling it so much.

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