Jump to content
Forbin

The threat of Big Dog

Recommended Posts

Bulletstorm's sci-fi which makes it way more realistic than the supernatural Wanted mythos!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Mysterious Google Barge headed for the scrap heap

Apparently the ominous barge off of San Francisco had an East Coast equivalent.

 

In November, Google told TechHive that the barges would be "an interactive space where people can learn about new technology."

 

Although Google's comments did dampen the enthusiasm of some barge speculators, others wondered how far these showcases would go. Would they just be for Google Glass, Android phones, and other standard Google projects? Or would previously unknown technological delights from the Google X division amaze barge visitors?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You see a figure on the side of the road with it's thumb out.  You decide to pick this person up because you could use some company on your drive.  Only too late do you realize it's actually a robot.

 

HitchBOT

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The fact that that video and much of the website are written in first person from the robot's perspective makes it so much worse.

 

"I hope that humans and robots can learn to trust each other as a result of my journey"

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm now imagining a weird existential conversation with it, that ends in blood and tears. HitchBOT, a David Lynch film.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Passing a construction site today, and had to do a double take at this. They're just openly advertising their constant surveillance of us now?

 

3FJZcwC.jpg?2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The sign's a bit boisterous, but I don't think it's too uncommon to be public about your surveillance. While cameras can help identify crimes and catch criminals, there are no guarantees. It's much cheaper and more convenient if you can put people off committing the crime in the first place.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, I specifically meant ROBOT surveillance. I thought the uprising was meant to be a secret in these early stages.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hahaha, I'd somehow managed to completely overlook the "Robowatch" part. Silly me.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The only reason I'm not more terrified of that sign is because a local security firm already cornered the market on being incredibly creepy.

 

ejFRAAV.png

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Very cool. Bonus: because there's about a thousand of them, their creators get to call them "Kilobots", which doesn't at all suggest anything more sinister in the slightest.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Was this posted??

Less "robots are coming to kill you", more "robots are taking our jobs and there's no fence we can build to stop their arrival".

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Very cool. Bonus: because there's about a thousand of them, their creators get to call them "Kilobots", which doesn't at all suggest anything more sinister in the slightest.

 

On the bright side, they'll eventually be replaced by adorable petabots.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Less "robots are coming to kill you", more "robots are taking our jobs and there's no fence we can build to stop their arrival".

I don't know anything about economics, so this is probably hopelessly naïve, but once automated systems are producing the majority of the world's wealth, shouldn't there be plenty of stuff to go around? It's not like there will be a food shortage – the problem is that the machines are too good at producing food, among everything else – so people shouldn't be going hungry. Or is that too much like a lazy version of communism? I suppose capitalism would have us give everything to the owners of the machines and the few people still required to run them (to give them their objectives, for example: the robots themselves don't actually want anything, so, barring machine intelligence, they'll always need directing). But governments tend not to like having their population starving on the streets, so I imagine they'd intervene at least enough to keep people fed (assuming production is happening in their own country, I suppose). Whether there would be any incentive to provide living conditions far above that, I don't know. Is it feasible that we end up with mass unemployment but a comparatively high basic standard of living, because robots can provide what we need at essentially zero labour cost?

Again, I imagine that's stupidly optimistic, but it seems to me the way it ought to be. It would be pretty strange to have these armies of automated systems producing mass abundance but nobody with any money to buy any of it. In fact, wouldn't that cause the robot economy to collapse? It doesn't matter how cheap these machines are: if nobody can afford to buy what they're making, they'll still lose money. Isn't the free market supposed to be self-righting like that?

Also, that CGP Grey guy has a slightly irritating and affected-sounding manner of speech, but that's true of most major YouTube personalities.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Similar thoughts occurred to me, too, James. It seems like as production of the Necessities becomes more and more automated, we should be more and more willing ot hand it out for super cheap, if not for free. And relatedly, unemployment is going to shoot into the atmosphere, but... is that really a bad thing? With the necessities being so cheaply produced, unemployment shouldn't be a problem anymore, because those people can survive comfortable (theoretically) and do what they love doing instead of doing what they have to in order to survive.

 

I'm probably being somewhat idealistic. I recall a thread a while ago on these forums that discussed a general living allowance, handed freely to every citizen. Some countries already do this and it appears to successfully encourage people to work, rather than make them lazy. I wonder how robots doing the "blue collar" jobs would affect that sort of economy.

 

Mmmh. Fun to think about. I need someone more intelligent (or at least less ignorant on the subject) to tell me what to think!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, I slept on it, and I'm growing more and more wary of this film.

First of all, it seems more than a little disingenuous. It hammers on two contradictory points:

1. The robot revolution will be nothing like the industrial revolution

2. Look to an example from the industrial revolution to see how we'll fare

But then people aren't horses. Horses were always tools to use and therefore expendable and replaceable. People might be treated like that as well in some areas and countries, but human beings are still, at least in the west, held to be more than tools.

Then there's the poor messaging. What exactly does this film tell us? Bottom line: be afraid. It's fearmongering. It doesn't offer any solution or outlook, it's just a basic prediction that we'll be screwed. I tend not to listen to those on principle.

But most damning is that I've started to misbelieve the message. The film doesn't take into account any social context. It takes a single element (robotization) and takes it to a logical extreme, in a vacuum. But society doesn't work that way. There are thousands of forces at play that decide the future, no small part of it what was mentioned above: should a quarter of the people indeed become jobless and starving, no society would just go on if nothing happened. That's a major social change right there. I'm not saying there'd be a Butlerian Jihad, but pressures from all side would either diminish the influence of robots on the work force, or propel a new economy where robots indeed do all the work and the fruits of their labor is distributed to all. A Basic Income would be prime idea for this new society.

But taking a real world example: look at what's happening to nuclear power. It is to this day clearly the most optimum way to produce a relatively clean abundance of energy. But as we speak, many countries are deciding to revert back to other, less efficient modes because of a wide range of societal pressures: mistrust of nuclear power after Fukushima, the desire to go 'green'... The film is too simplistic in saying that simply because robot work is more efficient, it'll necessarily win out against alternatives. It completely neglected to take into account the single most important force in all change: societal support and context.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

But then people aren't horses. Horses were always tools to use and therefore expendable and replaceable. People might be treated like that as well in some areas and countries, but human beings are still, at least in the west, held to be more than tools.

Yeah, that definitely struck me as a shaky comparison. Firstly, has the lot of horses actually decreased, or are they just less valuable? Are we just breeding fewer of them? As you said, they were always being used as tools, and as those tools became less useful, we produced less of the tool. Secondly, as I very briefly alluded to in my above post, humans have always been, and will presumably continue to be, the active agent in the economy. It's human motivations that drives all of this. Humans don't want to be impoverished, so unless robot efficiency is combined with extreme human selfishness and cruelty (not inconceivable, but seems outlandish), I don't really see us ending up with mass poverty as a result of automation.

An interesting question is, if this near-fully automated society is possible and does come about, what motivates the few humans required to do work to keep the systems going? There will presumably need to be programmers for at least a while, and unless we start giving machines their own money somebody will need to finance all of this. Would we end up with an gargantuan rift between the spectacularly wealthy employed and the provided-for unemployed masses, who would all presumably be given more-or-less the same amount (ignoring special allowances for families, disability, etc.)? Everyone would be in an OK situation, but the prevailing thought seems to be that inequality is bad for society as a whole. What kind of extravagance would that kind of disproportionate wealth distributed among so few even afford?

I'm also uncertain that art is fully receptive to automation. Sure, that piano piece was a convincing composition, but it also had a very particular structure. I've yet to see any "creative" machines that give the appearance of having an idea. For machines to be able to supplant human artists, they need to be able to surprise and intrigue, and evoke emotion. I'm not sure how a bot would handle narrative creativity. I'm not saying it's impossible, but that's an extremely difficult challenge.

His point about art being a necessarily niche profession seems to come from a very modern mindset. As I understand it, that's basically a post-celebrity idea. Before the general public were able to access the great artists of their time (before distance communication and mass transit, for example), they weren't living artless lives, they were experiencing art on a community level; folk music and so on. Perhaps, with nothing else to do, more people would turn their attention to producing their own art. It may not get much renown, but apparently we're going to have a whole load of time to check it out. Not that I think an entirely art-based economy makes a great deal of sense, but that just returns us to the point that this is only a problem because everything's already covered. And back to the question of how it's profitable for these machines to be producing things that no-one can afford.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My main philosophical worry would be: what the hell would most people do with their lives if they didn't have work? Would we become a purely hedonistic society where the pursuit of pleasure is all that matters? Would (some) people delve into art (I know I would, I'm halfway there at this point) and become like the Greek philosophers? What I also predict is the rise or 'human-made' goods as a becoming a huge deal, in the way 'biological' or 'organic' food is now. People will want stuff with flaws, errors, the clear mark of man-made things.

All, of course, in the event the robots don't wipe us out. Let us stay on fucking topic, here.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×