/sci/ - Science & Math

>implying energy will remain cheap enough to reach a 'singularity'

Dohohohoho. Seriously, hoping for the 'singularity' is the same as hoping for the rapture.

>>3273835
According to that graph we can already simulate a rat brain. Did it come to pass, oh Messiah?

>>3273846

thou shalt not call thy prophet false

>>3273846

Regardless, we will all be dead before it makes any significant difference to the average human.

>>3273846
Except there is clear evidence for the technological singularity but not for the rapture. GTFO.

>>3273852
Of course

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/ibm-has-achieved-cat-scale-brain.html
>IBM Has Achieved Cat Scale Brain Simulation Which are 15 times the scale of Previous Rat Brain Simulations

>>3273871
No, it will affect instantly almost everyone.

I have my own theory on what it will look like. I assume there are other people who share my opinion. The first to qualify for the technological singularity will be a synergy between human and computer intelligence. Innovation, invention, creativity and novelty will increase at such a high rate that everyday we will make advances that used to take decades. Technology will truly be indistinguishable from magic. We will reach the point where technological acceleration is approaching infinity and nearly everything is possible. It will be a MILLION times better than an orgasm all day every day.

>>3273913
>only 83 times slower than real-time

Oh boy I can't wait for the singularity. Because then I can replace my brain for a computer and start thinking VEEEEEEEERY SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWLY

Sure is Kurzweil in here

>>3273971
dumb bitch, it will get faster with time

>>3273971

However after a while, it'll be 41.5 times slower than real time, then 20.75, then 10, then 5, then 2.5, then 1.25 and finally 0.75, etc. Seriously, that's just about a decade of progress. After two decades you'll be sitting on 1000 times faster than real time.

Seriously, by the time you're 20 years older than you are today, computers will be thousands of times faster than they are today and 40 years down the road they'll be millions of times faster. Shit like that does have an impact on things. I mean by 2020 1Gbit connections will be as common in many places as 1Mbit is today.

>>3273971

Buuuttt nooooott diiiiiee!!!!!

Also you could always upgrade the container of your conciousness as new models are developed.

>>3274012

>20 years
>1,000 times more fast

Keep going, son.

>>3273835 Exponential growth, logarithmic Plot

=> Plot, Y U NO straight line??

>>3274002
And you're being dense. IBM paraded their cat brain simulation as if it was a huge achievement, when they could have done it years ago at only 150x reduced speed, say.

So back to the point: at what speed can we simulate rat brains right now? We should have crossed over into faster than reality going by OP's graph.

>>3273971
The difference is that the brain is only powerful due to its massive parallelism: Neurons, after all, take whole milliseconds to fire. Computers are a lot faster but flat surfaces and single-processors, even this "multi-core" stuff is not true parallelism. The moment we develop parallel computation and 3D printing of microchips is both the moment computing power reaches unthought of levels and the moment heat radiation becomes and actual problem rather than "I'll troll /g/ by frying marshmallows on my NVIDIA".

>>3273913
Hoax. They have the computing power to run a few billion of these little "dots", but neither their properties or their structure resembles that of a cat in any way. Cat uploads are far off.

We have, on the other hand, simulated a nice portion of a mice's brain, their cerebellum, by duplicating the structure and abstracting away some of the behaviour of the neurons, and it showed cerebellum-like behaviour. We'll then upload a whole rat, and I expect it to show extremely rat-like behaviour, ie fucking awesome.
I think mind uploading is not going to be a problem with the brain stuff; scanning technology keep increasing it's resolution and eventually you might as well follow Anders Sandberg's advice: Freeze the brain, laminate it, scan with electron microscope. (Freezing a brain creates cracks and there is no activity to record, but you get the idea). I think the biggest problem of mind uploading will be defeating this brain/body dualism (Rather than mind/body dualism, which is so 20th century): That is, a thought can cause the heart to pump faster, feeding more Oxygen to the brain, pH and hormones can affect the way neurons work, et cetera. You get the idea. Isolating a brain and simulating it might be good enough, might not.

>>3274059

On the subject of AI, well, I never really thought of strong AI designed from the ground up by humans as being plausible, at least not within this century. I know AI has not failed and a lot of things we use today are basically AI, it's that when we discover a part of the brain's behaviour people go "But that's just simple math! I can't possibly be consciousness!". Maybe it's an incremental process, and there'll be a point where we can describe consciousness, or perhaps the part cannot conceive the whole and we cannot create posthuman or human-equivalent AI through any mean other than artificial evolution of sub-human AI's.

So, His Metamajesty Ray Kurzweil is not that far gone, except that he is.

>>3274040

Because it's going slightly faster.

>>3274044

>So back to the point: at what speed can we simulate rat brains right now?
at full speed

>>3274059
>"I'll troll /g/ by frying marshmallows on my NVIDIA".
I believe the meme is frying eggs on a Fermi

>>3274076

Don't go on /g/ much, but if you identified it you got the point.

>>3274060
You infidel! You will burn in the singularity hell!

>>3274084

Pure Transhumanists > Singularitarians

>>3273835
is there an up-to-date graph of this?

>>3274059
>We'll then upload a whole rat, and I expect it to show extremely rat-like behaviour, ie fucking awesome.

Wouldn't this be immoral? Creating a mind with no body and no external stimulus. It would be a mind trapped in a personal hell.

>>3274104
Something similar has been already done

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QPiF4-iu6g&feature=related

>>3274094
http://www.top500.org/lists/2011/06/performance_development

Supercomputers CURRENTLY has computing capacity (measured in operations per second) on par with a human brain.

Only the appropriate software is missing.

>do 9001 calculations per second
>too bad it can only calculate math problems and nothing else

OMG SINGULARITY SO COOOOOOLLL

>>3274143
You'd need a perfectly efficient programmer to emulate the human brain with resources equal to it. (Assuming we the structure and dynamics of it, which we don't.) Aim for 10x the power/storage and we might be able to. Why though?

Enough with the singularity faggotry. If you upload yourself how do you propose paying for electricity or maintenance. By devoting resources to problems?

Windows ME failed, and so will you.

>>3274126
Is this legit? Man that mouse must have been confused as fuck. "where are my legs? why do I have wheels? why don't I have whiskers?"

I'd love to see a human brain connected to an Asimo or some other more advanced robot. Perhaps I'll donate my brain to science for just that purpose.

>>3274165
>Aim for 10x the power/storage
Human brain runs on 20 watts; we currently have more than 10x necessary power.
We currently probably have 10x necessary storage

I presume you meant computing power.
10x gains in computing power (for super computers) are made roughly every ~3 years.
CONSULT PREVIOUS GRAPH/SITE.

>>3274202
>Is this legit?
Well, not literally. There's one comment that says it well:

It's not an actual rats brain. It's just rat brain cells they took from a rats brain. Rat brain cells in the experiment make a mini neural net that can control the robot.

So the rat doesn't probably have a consciousness anymore

>>3274224
>implying rats have consciousness to begin with.

>>3274236

Oh boy here we go.jpg

>>3274211
>>3274143
>Only the appropriate software is missing.

Yes and no. A brain is more than just an adding machine, but an adding machine is all a computer is. We also need a better computational architecture to host the program - the idea that x86 is appropriate to host a brain is laughable. The search for such is part of cognitive computing.

Every time ray kurzweil blows a load, throngs of poorly educated futurists crawl from the woodwork to lap up his cum.

Capitalism won't just die you ignorant fucks. You'll have to pay for whatever singularity goods you want just like an iphone.

>>3274092

Deus Ex: HR: Best representation of what life might be like in 30 years.

Class division is worse, nobody can afford the wonders of technology just like today, and as a result society is turning on technology.

We don't have a bright future. We're just hairless apes,

>>3273835
I might be a bit noobish here to ask for this but i have done reading all comments .. Whats is a most precice definition for singularity? And about the computer evolving part , moores law say that cpu gets twice a big/fast every 2 years.. Only question is how long till we reach physical limitations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Transistor_Count_and_Moore%27s_Law_-_2011.svg

FYI: Every graph kurzweil makes is completely made up and subjective. It has no valid merit.

>>3274284
Every time poorly educated self-labelled realists crawl from the woodwork to begin arguments against near post-scarcity, I have to clean up their objectivist cum.

Capitalism won't just die you ignorant fuck, it will be transcended. As autolabour replaces humans in the workforce, there will be huge unemployment which will only continue to worsen until there simply isn't enough consumers to support it anymore. With the new technologies that continuously emerge that will reduce scarcity in all facets of life, capitalism will transition into something superior.

>>3274303

Singularity is Nerd Rapture.

Quid Pro Quo.

>>3274292
>>ofc they will afford it . Demand and request you dont build something if you cant sell it or people cant afford it and you always try to make it massive for example lowering the prices

>>>/x/

>>3274303
>precice definition for singularity
technological advancement increases normally
..suddenly MAGIC!!!!!
now we're all self aware robots
..suddenly MORE MAGIC!!!
now the entire Universe is a sentient machine

the magic is irrelevant because as processing power increases, then naturally FUCK SCIENCE

why the fuck are people looking forward to this? Doesn't it horrify you that you're being shrunk into a computer? Seriously people, what the fuck. This is just another example of mad science gone awry.

>>3273846

Ramen.

>>3274314
>As autolabour replaces humans in the workforce,
But that already happened. Are you ignorant of history? How many people do you know that are farm workers or factory assemblers? They've almost all been replaced by automation.

>there will be huge unemployment which will only continue to worsen until there simply isn't enough consumers to support it anymore.
And then that didn't happen -- AT ALL. Instead the market forces AS THEY MUST, forced people into NEW kinds of jobs, particularly in the service sector; jobs that never existed before. So it will always be. So it must be.

The rate of increase in processor speeds is going down quickly.
We are constrained by the speed of light, and thus can't make them faster.

>>3274314

>As autolabour replaces humans in the workforce,

Let's see,
Robot:
Cost to construct: at least a few thousand if not a few million dollars depending on the complexity of the job. Full human capabilities will cost at least a few mill per robot.
Cost to maintain: Gotta replace parts, gotta service and perform regular maintenance. have to have experienced engineers on payroll to fix the robots.
Cost to pay for living expenses: nothing

Human:
Cost to make: Nothing
Cost to maintain: Nothing
Cost to pay: 3 cents an hour.

How will replacing people with robots ever be cost effective? There will always be underdeveloped countries for capitalistic societies to exploit.

Pretend you're talking to a board of directors who only care about the bottom line. Sell them on shifting their workforce to automatons. Watch them laugh if you mention the "benefits to humanity"

Humans and human society do not work like you think. You're thinking "This is what i'd do if i had all the power". You don't. Greedy psychopaths do. They run the whole world. How are you going to convince them?

>>3274344
>Look, robots already took over some jobs, and those people displaced went into other ones!

>There's NO chance of technology becoming to cheap and efficient to displace 50% of the population with not enough adequate work to replace it for the relatively uneducated workers. Absolutely no chance at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9Fxp3HK6DI

>>3274361
>Cost to make: Nothing
>Cost to maintain: Nothing
no, that's not how humans work

>>3274368

>he thinks people will just accept and trust robot cars

No chance in hell.

>>3274369

How much does it cost THE COMPANY to make a human? Are sweatshops in vietnam really giving complete and free healthcare to their 3 cent an hour salary men?

Robots take money to make. There will always be humans willing to work at whatever rate. Shit, 86% of the world makes less money than a mcdonalds employee.

>>3273835
Thing is, our mind isn't just a number of calculations per second.

If a computer can beat a world-class go player, I'm interested.

>>3274380
Most professions can easily be replaced with a machine that costs a few thousand dollars. Or even a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars.

Think of all the paychecks you'd have to pay for them, not to mention medical bills and insurance or them possibly not coming in.

That's all in the richer countries. The poorer ones will always find benefit in cheap human labor.

>>3273835
Light is far from being a problem m8
What you are loking for is lengh of hertz..
Let me define
1herts is equal to 360.000km per second
10 herts is equal to 3600km per second
Now take a look at a 2.8 gigahertz procecor and imagine how short the circuit wires are thats where physics comes and fuck things up by saying to much heat

>>3274383
well apparently in like 30 years we will just use the conciousness of the best Go player as a computer

>>3274372
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/google-8217s-self-driving-car/5445
>Google announced this weekend that it’s been building robotic cars that have been driving themselves around California — down curvy Lombard Street in San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, along the Pacific Coast Highway, around Lake Tahoe and from Google’s Mountain View headquarters to Santa Monica (a 350-mile trip). So far, the cars have logged over 140,000 miles.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/emerging-tech/71013.html?wlc=1289109166&wlc=1301304426&wl
c=1308872729
>So far, the only mishap the self-driving car has encountered was getting rear-ended at a traffic light.

Oh, and two hours ago:
http://www.geek.com/articles/news/nevada-passes-law-giving-self-driving-cars-the-ok-20110623/
>Back in May we told you about Google’s foray into self-driving cars. Google lobbied the Nevada state legislature to pass a law making it legal for driverless cars to operate on public streets. Lo and behold, Nevada has complied and passed one of two laws Google had lobbied to get passed.

>>3274383
Enough processing power would lead to a computer being able to beat a worldclass player no problem.

>>3274380
>How much does it cost THE COMPANY to make a human?
it doesn't matter who pays for it, someone does. the cost to bring up a productive human will eventually be subtracted from the combined wealth of the society.

>>3274391

>Think of all the paychecks you'd have to pay for them, not to mention medical bills and insurance or them possibly not coming in.

They already solved this not by building incredibly complex and expensive robots, but by shipping jobs overseas to where workers' rights are nonexistent.

That will always be the cheaper option. We keep most of the world poor to make sure it's always the cheaper option.

I'd love to have what you're saying come true. But from a business perspective, there's just no sense in replacing a cheap human workforce with a complicated and expensive robot workforce.

>>3274395
Well, true.

I'm looking for a more sophisticated way though. Bruteforcing is cool, but I'd be disappointed if the future will just bring more operations-per-second

Though I admit that I don't exactly know what I'm talking about.

>>3274403
Wrong assumption. Computer and robotic technology and continuously rocketing down in price. And how are we going to outsource the service industry? Ship Taiwanese maids to and fro to clean the rooms?

>>3274372

I'd trust a google made robot car more than id trust a fucking person. It would seriously be hard/impossible for it to be worse than the people i see on the road.

>>3274394

I know all of that and i have no problem with robot cars. You have to convince the people who aren't using reason to determine that robot cars are dangerous. You have to fix the last 50 years of popular conscience robots going on a rampage before you'll get the real meat of humanity to trust them. Shit, some people will never trust cruise control, or planes that fly by themselves, but you think that they all think rationally like you and will just accept it?

I hardly think so.

Who cares about people being replaced by machines?
It happens every day.
FFS, just think about how the old telephone system worked; thousands of people employed to manually switch lines and connect calls; now it's all automated. They recovered, and so will anybody else who's replaced.
Any unemployment caused is temporary

>>3274413

So you have a chart that shows how each progressive Asimo model has reduced the cost since the very first one?

Or any proof to back up this assertion?

>>3274414
This is just you and me, bro.

I know a few people who completely freak out when they are not driving themselvers. Well, freaking out is exaggerated. Let's say they get really nervous.

And how would you explain to people that accidents can possibly happen, even if the risk for an accident is lower by orders of magnitude.

>>3274368
>There's NO chance of technology becoming to cheap and efficient to displace 50% of the population with not enough adequate work to replace it for the relatively uneducated workers.
Again, this already happened, but it was more like 80% or 90%.

When there are not jobs, new jobs are necessarily created. No matter how much wealth is being created via automation, people need to work, to have something to trade for that wealth. This causes and caused a positive feedback loop of increasing wealth. Today our machines make our food and clothes and durable goods, and we make our money doing less essential things. But those less essential things -- like delivering pizza, and industry that a poorer culture couldn't come close to affording -- add to our wealth and standard of living. When some of those things are replaced, we'll find even more things to do, which will further add to the goods and services available to our community, ad infinitum.

>>3274421
And economics will be more perilously perched on the capricious whims of inane consumption of valueless products.

It's quite possible that brute forcing is the only method of playing Go.
The answer to that question is one of the biggest unsolved problems in computer science (P vs NP).
If there isn't a "smart" way then logically our brain is just brute forcing it as well.

>>3274429

This. One accident early on would doom the entire concept. People are really unforgiving to technology.

Remember the Hindenburg. Lighter-than air travel took a sharp dive.

>>3274432
Yay.

>>3274421
Exactly. All those telephone operators now work at nail salons (to simplify). So now getting a manicure isn't a luxury for the super-rich. The automation of switchboards improved our quality of life by making manicures more affordable, improving our quality of life, without increasing unemployment over the long term. That is the evolution of an economy.

>>3274432

Hence why we have iphones instead of moon bases.

Humanity chose ease of life over quality of life. No going back now.

>>3273835
Looks like this thread has changed from electronic to software well a software can calculate faster then a human so makin a care drive isnt the big wonder look at military drones this have been able for many years as well as tomahawk missiles the big goal we are looking for en tecj evolution is to computer to adobt knowlegde and understand/learn it without a human force it to do so

>>3274060
>>3274059

>>3274444

But, the transference of large volumes of women from a job which required technical experience and intelligence shifted to one that just plays off their childhood fantasies and skills. That has to of had an enormous effect on society.

Imagine when everything is replaced by robots and nobody ever has to work. How many of us will just sit on the internet all day, never doing anything or seeking a higher education?

Damned if we do, damned if we don't. Ahh, life.

>>3274444
>Exactly, now people fulfill needless desires and extrapolate more useless freedoms so they can be completely incapacitated.

>wallE

>>3274432
Well, yes... that may well be.

>>3274455
>But, the transference of large volumes of women from a job which required technical experience and intelligence shifted to one that just plays off their childhood fantasies and skills. That has to of had an enormous effect on society
Er, I don't believe for a second that being a phone operator requires more intelligence or brain activity than being a manicurist. The latter seems like the more skilled position.

>Imagine when everything is replaced by robots and nobody ever has to work.
Again, that will never happen. 90% of your essentials are produced by robots. You still have to produce something that someone wants, so you can trade it for those essentials, regardless of who or what is producing them. That's the point. People will always have to work in order to have a stake in the game.

>>3274224
>>3274236

The chemicals that are responsible for a human brain's function exist in all of nature, even plants, fungi, and simpler life. And every single animal has some sort of nervous system. All life possesses some ability to intelligently react to it's environment.

It thus stands to reason that all life possesses some level of consciousness. Any argument to the contrary can be applied to other human beings.

>Again, that will never happen. 90% of your essentials are produced by robots. You still have to produce something that someone wants, so you can trade it for those essentials, regardless of who or what is producing them. That's the point. People will always have to work in order to have a stake in the game.

You're saying that we'll have gainful employment for 90% of the population while 90% of everything that needs to be made is made by robots?

Care to explain what? And why those jobs can't be done by robots at that point?

>>3274490

Oxygen, Heat, and Fuel exist everywhere. By your logic, everything should be on fire.

>>3274495
All you need to posit is a awesome widget, so awesome that 100% of the population will want one. This widget is so awesome that is complete non fungible, and can only be produced by Gucci.

>>3274490
I wouldn't call conciousness if on animals that don't recognize themselves in a mirror

The thing I'm interested why our ability to archieve conciousness proved to be superior to other animals size and deadliness

>>3274361

http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm

The moment automation becomes cheaper then employing people (And it will, just look at self-check out), companies will fire everyone.

Am I not correct in assuming that the whole point of a technological singularity is that no one will be able to predict the outcome of it?

>>3274543

Apparently not since ray kurzweil has made a career on making shit up about the singularity.

>>3274543
You'd be right if you pointed out that a singularity by definition, axiomaticly, is undefinable.

>>3274495
>Care to explain what?
This is already the case. AT LEAST 90% of what used to be manual labor to grow/pick/slaughter your food, manufacture the nails and boards for your house, is now mechanized, and those jobs were transferred to other, less essential industries.

>And why those jobs can't be done by robots at that point?
1) Because there will always be things that people can do but machines cannot, because (in non-science-fiction) machines aren't people.
2) It takes years or decades to figure out how to automate a given job... even if you assumed that machines can think like people and therefore do any job.
3) Again, even if you assume that machines can do literally everything people can do, there is always a luxury premium on "hand made". People will probably always pay more for their nails to be done or hair to be cut by a person rather than a machine. Certainly people will pay a premium to have a human therapist rather than a machine one. Or art or philosophy created by a human rather than a machine.

>>3274523
Certain drugs will render you incapable of recognizing yourself in the mirror, but you're still conscious.

>3274567

>1) Because there will always be things that people can do but machines cannot, because (in non-science-fiction) machines aren't people.

Like what?

>2) It takes years or decades to figure out how to automate a given job... even if you assumed that machines can think like people and therefore do any job.

But that means that all jobs will be replaced, it's just a matter of time.

>3) Again, even if you assume that machines can do literally everything people can do, there is always a luxury premium on "hand made". People will probably always pay more for their nails to be done or hair to be cut by a person rather than a machine. Certainly people will pay a premium to have a human therapist rather than a machine one. Or art or philosophy created by a human rather than a machine.

That really depends on culture and society not changing. It might be big, or they might be considered the Amish of the singularity. I don't think the current generation reveres hand made things as much as our parent's generation. Not everyone is hank hill.

I saw a program on that dude who wrote those books about the singularity. It's pretty clear the guy's predictions are twisted by his own fear of death.

I'm all for the technological singularities theoretical basis, but the utopian shit that he has built up is ridiculous.

>>3274597
I can't wait for the inevitable p-zombie transhuman war vs normals

>>3274610

everyone is a p-zombie.

>>3274590
>But that means that all jobs will be replaced, it's just a matter of time.
If you accept that machines can do everything humans can do, yes, just like in history, and just like in history, every time a machine replaces a job, new jobs are created that machines can't yet do.

>don't think the current generation reveres hand made things as much as our parent's generation. Not everyone is hank hill.
Not everyone has to value it. As long as some people value it, there will be premiums for human labor, which humans will partake in to earn a portion of society's wealth.

>>3274617

You can't use historical precedence. Looms aren't humanoid robots.

If we do it right. There will be no further use for humanity other than sheer existence. IMO: this is the only point of our species.

>>3274614
>And thus, the p-zombie war began

>>3274635
>and subsequently ended
There were no non-p-zombies to begin with, so the p-zombies win by default.

>>3274625
What does it matter if a robot is humanoid, or shaped like a tractor?

>>3274639
>forgets that p-zombies don't need to believe they're p-zombies

I'm not a p-zombie you fucker.

>>3274640

Human sized and shaped robots should ideally be able to do anything we can? and can be adapted to new jobs as easily as a human?

>>3274642
Unless you are the marionette with ethereal strings being pulled by a magical cloud of consciousness from another universe... then yeah, you're a p-zombie.

>>3274647
We create robots in sizes and shapes that are ideal for the task. A tractor is farm more ideal a configuration for plowing and reaping than a humanoid. Same with a welding robot, and just about anything else. That's why real-world robots aren't humanoid.

>>3274642
Then I guess this war will be over quick.
*pumps shotgun*

>>3274653

And a humanoid robot is ideal for the task of replacing humanoid workers. They can drive the combines that already exist. A universally adaptable robot has far more appeal than a one off specialist model. It'll be the cheapest and therefore the most likely.

>>3274648
>doesn't realize how the war between transhuman p-zombies and normals starts.

>>3274656
*pumps 1 watt blue laser* How can you kill me if you can't see me?

>>3274674
>... Mr. Anderson
Well played.

>>3274567
As computers and robots become as capable as people, or often, more capable, they are going to replace more and more jobs.

Automation pushed people out of manufacturing because robots were vastly superior, cheaper, faster, more efficient, etc.

The jobs we have today mostly cannot be done by robots at a competitive price point. But that is changing as the technology develops.

The fundamental reason that robots are not fully replacing people, is that people still have something about them that is superior to robots - their brain. But machine intelligence is not static, we have self-driving cars now, how long do you think it will be before truckdrivers no longer exist and all goods are transported by self driving vehicles?

Watson is already showing that we could replace doctors with a machine for diagnosis.

There are "attacks" on almost every level, where people can or will soon be replaced by automation. What new jobs, what new industry, is going to spring up that will employ the vast majority of humanity, and that intelligent automation will be unable to do?

>>3274685
Thank you.

Can they make me young again? :-(

>>3274696
This is all true if we start picture humans are just bits in a machine and the corruption of a few bits meaningless to the machine's processes.

The axiom supposed here is that individuality is meaningless.

>>3274696
When machines do all the mundane jobs, all the humans can be artists and philosophers.

>>3274786
>thinks theres anything left to do when theres nothing left to do

>>3274713
Okay, let us look at what humans can do that nothing else in the animal kingdom as far as we know, is able to do: Abstract reasoning and thought.

If we assume that robots and machines are more efficient than humans but will forever be incapable of abstract reasoning and thought, then we can assume that every other job *except* those which require abstract reasoning and thought, will be performed by robots.

Even with this assumption, we are still heading towards a complete shakeup of our economic system as automated systems replace basically everything that humans are doing right now. Data entry, construction, bean counting, burger flipping, truck driving... these do not require abstract reasoning and thought. The only way you can assume that automation will not introduce massive unemployment is if you toss away the idea that robots are more efficient and cheaper than humans.

There are still ways that we could have superior robots, and still not utilize them in all manner of fields. But it would go against capitalism to do that, and the first nation or country to say "fuck it" and go all out on automation is going to have a decided edge against everyone else who has artificially legislated their robotic edge away.

>>3274805
How can we NOT be moving towards a future where "unemployment" as we know it is incredibly common?

What I want to see happening, and something that I think will inevitably happen, would be robots doing all the labor and work that people do not WANT to do. Everyone will be able to do something enjoyable with their life, whether that be learning guitar, or sitting at home playing WoW all day, or building cars, and so on.

Obviously our current economic system cannot support this. It just does not work. How do you buy food if you are unemployed? We certainly cannot simply GIVE food away. Or anything else - luxury items, cars, TV's. We can't give that stuff away, how would we keep consumption in check? What happens to the free market, the invisible hand? These are questions that I think we're going to have to figure out and answer pretty soon, because to me, we're headed for this whether we want it or not.

I hate the number of people here so pessimistic about the future here. Technology almost universally improves quality of life. Why should it be any different in the future?

>>3274805
So, uh..what..wait..let me..huh? Ok so jus..what? Lets..wait..huh? I'm going to pretend that you're just a p-zombie and move on from here.

>>3274807
Employment is basically an artifact of scarcity (natural or artificial). The problem is, what if the psychological motivation behind artificial scarcity cannot be extirpated with the presence of super-advanced robotics?

>>3274812
Actually, this is not so much a myth about the future as it is an unhelpful way of thinking about the future. A recent study by researchers at New York University's Motivation Lab found that people who spend too much time imagining a wonderful future tend to have less energy to achieve their goals. Researchers Gabriele Oettingen and Heather Barry Kappes studied the systolic blood pressure of people who visualized a "beautiful fantasy" about the future, and found that those people had less energy — and thus, less energy to get things done. The brain sees the fantasy of success as being the same thing as actual success.

http://io9.com/5814484/myths-about-the-future-that-could-ruin-your-life

>Theres always want useless idealist in these threads

>>3274812
>Technology almost universally improves quality of life.

Bullshit. Most of technology is making up for problems caused by prior technology.

>>3274807
No economic system should support this. If you are not a productive member of society, you do not belong in society. Let us quibble over how long you can be unproductive, because it would be stupid for an ace programmer to flip burgers just because we don't have unemployment, but the goal of being unproductive is not in alignment with anything sensible.

>>3274841
Two lungs are stupidly inefficient. Welcome to the last billion years.

>>3274841
You sound like hippy. I shouldn't have to tell you what your own argument is, but it seems I have to. Technology increases humanity's ability to do things, nothing else. The only problem that can come from technology is through mismanagement.

Power is never bad. Only the misuse of power is bad. You are arguing that humans don't have the ability to use some technology.

>>3274841
You sound like a hippy. I shouldn't have to tell you what your own argument is, but it seems I have to. Technology increases humanity's ability to do things, nothing else. The only problem that can come from technology is through mismanagement.

Power is never bad. Only the misuse of power is bad. You are arguing that humans don't have the ability to use some technology.

>>3274868
>You sound like a hippy.

You sound like a technotopian. Good for you, but it puts you on about the same level as fundie christians.

>>3274841

Why does every Singularity or transhumanism thread devolve into some batshit insane group of luddites jerking each other off?

>>3274874
How do I sound like a "technonopewiaowatever"? lol

What did I state that isn't a simple fact?

>>3274797
This is sort of the goal of progress. One of the founding fathers said something like that... that they would be soldiers so their children could be merchants and their grandchildren could be artists.

>>3274805
Yes, hopefully robots will do all those things one day. But it is not a "shake up" if it happens gradually. It's less of a shake up than what happened already to farming.

OP your image is ridiculous. The Y-axis is labeled "Calculations per second per $1,000". That doesn't make sense for the animals listed on the right. Computers are already far more economical than animals at computation, that's why we use them. The graph would make a lot more sense if the Y axis was labeled "calculations per second".

>>3274807
Once again we are NOT headed for that. Once again, people won't sit around amusing themselves. To get a part of the wealth, they need something to exchange, which means they have to produce something that is desired by other humans, whether it's music, or video games, or sex, or novels, or mathematical research or philsophy, or designing new robots or repairing old ones, or politics. The share of the wealth will always be determined by how much demand there is for what you manage to produce.

haha stupid fool OP

there will be no technological singularity

your great-grandchildren will be born into the new dark age

pic related
pic related

>>3274879
because it counterbalances the butthurt futurists who live in their parents basement which everyone knows is indistinguishable from a cave.

>>3274847
You make the mistake of assuming your idea of what is a productive member of society is the only idea of a productive member of society.

Besides, our current society doesn't even care if you are productive or not. What matters is only that you have money. Not how much effort you put into life or how much you have expanded human knowledge, or how many people you have helped.