Technology

[StallChaser]

People had these sorts of debates back in the Industrial revolution. Back then Luddite was an actual insult to lob at someone who was afraid of technology's gradual encroach on people's lives.

I don't think it's a really relevant discussion to have right now, since technology is a reason why most of us are alive today. I think it's a better discussion to be had once things like artificial intelligence come about. Then we can have discussions about if computers can replace people.

I'm still in the "tech is good" camp. I'm not a believer of the whole "AI will become self aware and go rogue" so much as AI will be an increasingly powerful extension of ourselves. It's already happening with smartphones and computers.

 

[Marvin]

I'm still in the "tech is good" camp. I'm not a believer of the whole "AI will become self aware and go rogue" so much as AI will be an increasingly powerful extension of ourselves. It's already happening with smartphones and computers.

Well, not only do I believe science fiction ideas of AI are unlikely, I think they're specifically impossible (or very infeasible). Computers and brains supporting consciousness have very different structures. They both store and process similar amounts of data, just in very different ways.

If you were going to artificially design an intelligent being, the better design would be closer to a human brain than a computer. And it couldn't be built, but it would have to be grown, particularly out of organic matter. Heh, the closest we're gonna get to AI is by just fucking and having children, like we do now.

 

[Holdek]

Well, not only do I believe science fiction ideas of AI are unlikely, I think they're specifically impossible (or very infeasible). Computers and brains supporting consciousness have very different structures. They both store and process similar amounts of data, just in very different ways.

If you were going to artificially design an intelligent being, the better design would be closer to a human brain than a computer. And it couldn't be built, but it would have to be grown, particularly out of organic matter. Heh, the closest we're gonna get to AI is by just fucking and having children, like we do now.

New research is being done in terms of high-resolution brain imaging, with the goal of obtaining designs for new computers with neural architecture. The holy grail is a computer that has the pattern recognition, capacity for abstract thinking, and emotional ability that a human brain does, with the power, memory, and speed of machines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Create_a_Mind

 

[Marvin]

New research is being done in terms of high-resolution brain imaging, with the goal of obtaining designs for new computers with neural architecture. The holy grail is a computer that has the pattern recognition, capacity for abstract thinking, and emotional ability that a human brain does, with the power, memory, and speed of machines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Create_a_Mind

We can't really beat the designs that nature has come up with though. The ideal (or hell, not ideal, but even just functional) design requires small parts that easily replace themselves and grow which turns out to be... organic cells. Kurzweil has the general ideas down, but he's very mistaken about how feasible this is. Moore's law is ending. I mean, we've still got some time before its burnt out completely, but we're hitting actual physical limits on how small we can make computing parts. Heh, we're actually starting to make transistors that are just a few atoms put next to each other.

 

[Holdek]

We can't really beat the designs that nature has come up with though. The ideal (or hell, not ideal, but even just functional) design requires small parts that easily replace themselves and grow which turns out to be... organic cells. Kurzweil has the general ideas down, but he's very mistaken about how feasible this is. Moore's law is ending. I mean, we've still got some time before its burnt out completely, but we're hitting actual physical limits on how small we can make computing parts. Heh, we're actually starting to make transistors that are just a few atoms put next to each other.

Kurzweil acknowledges the physical limits of Moore's law. He predicts that, like the transistor before it, integrated circuits will give way to something new, probably nanotubes, or maybe "molecular computing, self-assembly in nanotube circuits, biological systems emulating circuit assembly, computing with DNA, spintronics (computing with the spin of electrons), computing with light, and quantum computing."

This is something that will happen gradually over time, if at all, though.

 

[Marvin]

Kurzweil acknowledges the physical limits of Moore's law. He predicts that, like the transistor before it, integrated circuits will give way to something new, probably nanotubes, or maybe "molecular computing, self-assembly in nanotube circuits, biological systems emulating circuit assembly, computing with DNA, spintronics (computing with the spin of electrons), computing with light, and quantum computing."

This is something that will happen gradually over time, if at all, though.

Moore's law is just an example of a physical limit. And really, it'll be an example of what happens when we hit a limit we can't get around.

The alternative technologies you mention would help us dodge some physical limits, like space. (Except for computing with DNA, because that'd still take up noticeable space.) But the things you mention still have external physical costs in the energy you expend to maintain and run the systems. When you're dealing with smaller and more fundamental particles, it's trivial to fuck things up, so you have to expend a shitload of energy to keep everything from condensing and forming larger particles.

 

[Holdek]

Moore's law is just an example of a physical limit. And really, it'll be an example of what happens when we hit a limit we can't get around.

The alternative technologies you mention would help us dodge some physical limits, like space. (Except for computing with DNA, because that'd still take up noticeable space.) But the things you mention still have external physical costs in the energy you expend to maintain and run the systems. When you're dealing with smaller and more fundamental particles, it's trivial to fuck things up, so you have to expend a shitload of energy to keep everything from condensing and forming larger particles.

You're right. But, perhaps there will be advances in logically reversible computing

 

[Saigon63]

The real highspeed shit is the shit you don't hear about. I doubt many of you could really know how to write some powershell, or know F#. Those are going to be the biggest places to make sure you understand conceptually how Agent Based models work and how functional programming can make processes and messaging smarter, and with a high degree of auditing.