Being an ex vocational college president, I’m big on “Learning by Doing.” This morning we visit the “Let’s Wreck the World and Call It Progress” department.
So this morning we run through some of my checklist of major items that are likely to change in our lives and become fence posts that “corral the future” over the next 5-10 years – items which can WRECK the economy. While the future seems to be limitless and unbounded, there are always “bounding events” coming into view, much as a squeeze chute works at the local cattle ranches. The future happens “in the pen“.
In Wednesday’s report, I describe The Big Melt. That’s when the virtual world starts to creep out into our comfortable (old) here and now. Virtual blends real into something new.
This morning we begin listing things that will come along and utterly devastate what’s left of the economy during that part of future arriving.
Do we know how to have fun on the weekend, or what?
We’ll start “tearing down theses walls” as soon as we roll through some headlines and run out the Trading Model. And as a bonus, a discussion of contradictory triangle formations.
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we as humans will in the future have to determine what a master computer wants us to relay to it in order for our existence to survive
I was noticing that just the other night with my “wife-Router”. When I turn out the lights the TV console looks like a Christmas tree. At least 6-10 different I am working lights.
So should we get congress to borrow a couple of trillion to rebuild America? solar roads, efficient houses, etc.
You really should read “Dennis M. Bushnell, Future Strategic Issues/Future Warfare [Circa 2025] ” he goes over the trends of technology coming up and how they may play out. Bushnell was chief scientist at NASA Langley Research Center, he is responsible for technical oversight and advanced program formulation. His report is not some wild eyed fanaticism it’s based on reasonable trends. Link.
https://archive.org/details/FutureStrategicIssuesFutureWarfareCirca2025
Page 19 shows capability of the human brain and time line for human level computation.
Page 70 gives the computing power trend and around 2025 we get human level computation for $1000. 2025 is bad but notice it says”…By 2030, PC has collective computing power of a town full of human minds…”. This coming real fast and is the biggest challenge that humans have faced ever.
The only way that this can have no meaning is if computers go crazy with human or higher than human level computation. This idea comes from Larry Niven, Pournelle, etc. great Sci-Fi writers in the grand space opera tradition. I just don’t believe it. Every since this computer trend has been established Sci-fi has had a hard time dealing with it. Greg Egan has a great series “culture series” where the computers become partners with us but we have no assurance that this is the case.
The real problem is not that the machine is smart it’s that it has no empathy for humans. How does empathy work? I don’t think anyone knows. It’s hard enough to program intelligence. We know people with no empathy cause all sorts of problems. What about psychopathic super machines. It’s frightening.