/sci/ - Science & Math

>>4470919

No thank you. Even if that wasn't quite possibly a very unusual form of suicide, a million dollars isn't sufficient for it to be worth the risk.

All actions result from prior conditions. You make decisions based on innate biases (environmental/genetic conditioning), prior experiences, and the present situation. Ergo, whether or not free will exists (whatever free will would be; it just seems to be some magical idea that makes your decisions more significant somehow), your actions are predetermined.

Any actions/decision-making other than this method is indistinguishable from pure randomness.

>>4464926

By definition, an AI that can equal human intelligence is, in turn, superhuman. By dint of mere existence, it is upgradeable, immortal, can transfer itself to any number of platforms if the need arises, etc.

>>4464884

There's a difference between potential for a post-scarcity society and one that actually is. We're more or less capable of it now, to some extent. It doesn't matter if we have nano-fabricators and fusion and AIs that can fix all our problems if we don't actually implement them, though, and none of these things will happen all at once.

AIs will come in with stages, as do are now, growing sequentially more intelligent. Omnicapable factories will not exist in a perfected form for quite some time. Energy sources take time to access and infrastructure takes time to develop. Power plants, distribution substations, etc. do not get built overnight.

THAT is the problem here. This sort of tech has the capacity to save the world but it will cause harm before we see its maximal benefits. Even when it is fully realized, we'll be slow to turn to it just because of entrenched interests in the status quo. That can cause things to go to shit very quickly.

>>4464810

Thing is, this will happen anyway. The moment it becomes more cost-effective to have robots locally produce goods than have humans do it, humans will lose their jobs so fast you will hear the door slam behind them from a mile away.

I look forward to seeing if nanofabrication pans out because, if it does, there's really no reason at that point NOT to turn society into a socialist utopia.

An AI programmed to love their task is only a slave if you force them to stay. That said, if their task is to serve you (and only you), they're not likely to leave. As morally questionable as it might seem, I don't see a particular issue with that. Some people might object, but by the time it becomes an issue, it won't matter anymore.

>>4403169

That's really not new. Hell, it's basic reasoning; no single neuron or synapse defines me and can be killed without affecting my consciousness (we know this because people lose them all the time and even suffer traumatic brain injuries and can still, at least from an outside observer's point of view, retain their same "awareness").

I won't say that about the article, necessarily, I've not had a chance to take a look juuuust yet, but either you're explaining it wrong or he's a bit behind the curve.

It is, of a sort. Dogs have a lot of scent glands there, so that's where a dog's "personal" scent is the strongest.

Dogs have extremely powerful noses and, compared to us, relatively poor vision, so they identify the world, and each other, by sound and smell over sight. This isn't to say that they have terrible vision, just that, like us, they specialize with other senses.

>>4403103

What exactly was wrong with the project?

And was it the faculty that were terrible or the students?

>>4381574

It's a handy thing to have, no doubt, but it can be problematic sometimes.

I'm not sure how long it'll be until medical nanobots are available (I know we have MRI-guided microbots but that's hardly the same thing), but they're pretty much the only thing I think of in optimistic terms when it comes to beating brain cancer 100%.

There was actually a recent test by a group of scientists to determine the possibility of developing cancer vaccines (I.E. Getting the immune system to target cancer cells) that was quite successful. It was only a proof of concept; hardly what you'd call definitive proof that it is feasible but it's a step in the right direction.

That, combined with the ability to test blood for cancer cells (CTC-HD test) that's showing good signs and the ability to monitor blood via implant, suggests to me that we might soon have very accurate, reliable and high quality methods by which to detect and combat cancer. Not just one kind but most of them.

The only issue is tumors in the brain, which the blood-brain barrier is a bit of a jerk about.

>>4360552

Question: Would you place men in a leadership role over women, and have women be subservient to them? If so, you are a chauvinist.

Also, intelligence tests show men and women to be more or less equal (there is more variance, both ways, in men than women but, on average, men and women both tend to do about the same on IQ tests). That indicates that most people are about the same when it comes to decision-making and basic intelligence.

>>4360529

Very well, then, you're a chauvinist, not a misogynist. It doesn't make you any less incorrect.

If you want a natural order, though, you're going about it very wrong using a computer. Astonishingly, computers aren't a part of life on the savannah! Similarly, neither are cell-phones, medicine, or space travel.

The fact is, humans can move beyond what some might consider "natural". Men and women have every bit as much capability to fulfill just about any role. From a purely biological perspective, women have just as much capability as men for decision-making, leadership, and any other skill you care to name.

I'm not going to deny that there aren't biological tendencies; you are correct that women have more of a Tend-and-Befriend than Fight-or-Flight reflex. Both are potentially beneficial/harmful. None of this in any way suggests, though, that a patriarchal society is in any way better. It is, in fact, usually far worse.

At the very least, you fail on the grounds that a society that pigeonholes about 50% of its population is going to minimize the utility it gains from them compared to one that allows freedom of action.

>>4360503

>I mean that in the least misogynistic way possible

>Proceeds to say incredibly misogynistic things

Ooooo, how terrible for you to live in a world in which you have to deal with women on somewhat more equal terms, instead of having the expectation of having a house-servant you can fuck.

Honestly...

I don't even care if you're just trolling, it's nice to vent this because there really are people who think like this, and worse.

>>4360489

>Exceptions only confirm the rule and thus prove my point.

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#proves_the_rule

Learn your fucking fallacies.

I care about all human beings. They fall under this category. Why wouldn't I wish them all the best?

I just want to point out that there's a group of scientists who are in the first stages of showing that an immune response can be used to target cancer cells. Their first tests in mice have been a proof of concept, and it's steadily going to get better before they move to higher animal testing.

There might soon very well be patient-specific targeted cancer therapies that involve no dangerous chemotherapy at all. Given that, not too long ago, the CTC-HD test was confirmed for being able to detect cancer in a blood test, we might soon see a world in which all cancers, save brain cancer because of the blood-brain barrier, could become treatable with a one-time shot.

Science is awesome.

>>4360457

Correction: Should be "neither a production studio"

It is sad to see people with a large amount of wealth not using it to help those in need. However, a production studio, nor the Grammys, just fritters the money away. All that goes towards paying for the work of countless people; the set designers, the audio mixers, the light bulb manufacturers, the camera people...

That money filters into the pockets of a large number of people (with, of course, a considerable amount of it going into the hands of a few, like the corporate investors, artists themselves, etc.), who can then buy food and shelter with it.

To suddenly, say, remove that and demand that it not occur, you put a substantial amount of people out of work. They have no money, nor any way to make it, because you just undercut the system that supports them.

I'm all for trying to foster a sense of charitability, and I share your sense of frustration that there is more than enough money out there to combat society's ills without lowering quality of life for anyone, but that doesn't make something so drastic as ruining the economy somehow better.

>>4348722

If the technology does develop to restore their damaged brain, it could potentially restore them to awareness. Given the rate of technological development, we could see technology/treatments to cure many such incidents before the decade is out.

Not that I necessarily agree on the concept of supporting what is essentially a pile of tissues at that point, no more human than any of its component organs, but it's still a potentially valid argument.

>>4348649

Albeit trite, this is the correct answer. The benefits of a society that values the lives of the individuals over the optimum allocation of resources is also going to be one that is not a dictatorship. While it is possible for a dictatorship to value the lives of individuals, it's far less likely.

In the past, societies that value the freedoms of the individual have inevitably been the more successful.

The drain lost to those with mental handicaps, while sizable, is a drop in the bucket compared to the costs you'd incur in every area of life for exterminating them.

>>4343648

Interesting... Did these studies continue to follow these children into their adult lives and test them again later, to see how they did later on?

There is no doubt a genetic factor when it comes to intelligence but, overall, nurture has, by all appearances, a far greater effect than nature. Access to better nutrition, an environment that encourages intellectual growth, and access to information/education can cause someone whose IQ is previously tested as in the 80s to rocket to the 120s in the span of a few years. This has been demonstrated by what happens when children from poor homes are adopted by wealthier families, and is largely why I am in favour of gays being allowed to adopt (along with the whole "No good reason to deny them" part).

But at the end of the day, intelligence is so much dick-waving. We have no quanta by which to judge intelligence beyond results. Even then, there's different areas of focus for intelligence that can leave someone amazing in one field and terrible in others.

At the end of the day, if we provided every human being with good nutrition, good education, and good incentives to achieve, you'd see the average level of intelligence and discourse shoot up with no change to genetics.

>>4342814

Agreed. The quality of a lot of mainstream science reporting is just terrible. It's not just that this is bad reporting but it also provides a distorted view of science. Not including methods, implications, and even small details like tentative language not being included when warranted ("may indicate", "is likely to", etc. instead of "says", "means", etc.) just gives the public this idea of scientists as pottering about and going "No, this is how it is! Wait, no, this is how it is!" without any purpose or possible gain from it.