Personally, I really hope it's both possible with current/not-far-off technology and going to happen within that time frame; but you have to understand that people have been saying that computers are on the verge of becoming as intelligent as humans since the 60's.

As for the singularity and letting computers do everything for us, be careful with what you wish for. I think Ray Kurzweil's view is too anthropocentric; an artificial intelligence doesn't necessarily have to solve a problem the same way a human would, any more than an alien would have to. You can try to inculcate human values/ways/emotions into it, but in the end there might not be a way to ensure that an AI shares those values. And it doesn't even have to be hostile, as often depicted in movies, to potentially pose a problem: for example http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer. Of course there is always the route of humans further enhancing themselves as Ray Kurzweil mentions (which reminds me of Ghost in the Shell ), but that doesn't really avoid the issue; if it is possible, someone will do it sooner or later, and it might go wrong. Still, I hope someone does it.

That's probably because they got tired of waiting for UpDown to show up and left the campaign first, before going on to "riot in the streets".

I've seen other people edit their enrollment posts, not too long ago, and upon checking the OP, I think that part was deleted and replaced with:


Perhaps this is in preparation for a automated payment system that checks this information immediately upon enrollment, but I guess until we know for sure it might be safer to avoid editing it.

That would defeat the point of the test, though the test itself is only somewhat relevant to the whole concept of AI (and badly needs updating).



That's not true; this wasn't the first time a computer program was able to fool at least 30% of the people it talked with. For reference: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25692-no-skynet-turing-test-success-isnt-all-it-seems.html?full=true

A couple of quotes from the newscientist article:

Nah, Madagascar would be fine, unless the epidemic starts there.

(for those that don't know what I'm talking about, search for an old flash game called Pandemic/Pandemic II)

Solipsism at its best. 

Ah yes, that's it. And damn, I was way far from the mark; the most time logged in belongs to this user: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=27071;sa=statPanel. He's currently at 869 days, 5 hours and 44 minutes; but looking at how much he posts (or rather, doesn't post), it has got to be bots. 

Several users can do better than that. In fact, I recall someone posting a link that showed forum and member statistics, one of which was time logged in (I don't remember what the link was unfortunately); the highest ranked member was at 700 and some days, far more than even theymos (233 days). Whether or not he did it with bots, I don't know (though I kind of hope so, for his sake ).

Yes, I've occasionally ventured out and looked up to see those mysterious shiny things beyond the street lamps.

I didn't mean to say that having an atmosphere (like Earth's) automatically prevented you from seeing the stars (in that respect, the effect is negligible to what we were discussing); I should have been more clear in how I phrased it, but you aren't doing me any favors by omitting and apparently ignoring the post I was answering to and which I quoted in my reply.

If we're just talking about western animation here, maybe Family Guy, mostly during the initial seasons while Stewie was actively evil.

If this is about cartoons regardless of the origin, then Neon Genesis Evangelion, without a doubt.

Watson is nowhere near reaching human intelligence; current AI methods are very far from that. So much so in fact, that only fairly recently has the search for a strong AI (real, human level AI) resumed after the initial hype. For the last few decades the field has mostly shifted to machine learning; that is, searching for solutions for the "simpler" problems like computer vision and so on. Now, it's true that a computer can currently store and organize a lot of information into categories and derive some meaningful information from it; but that is still very far from what a human can do.

As for the second part I emphasized, a lot of human tasks require far more than this. But you're right, a lot of jobs would be rendered obsolete if we decided to automate what we could tomorrow, even without a strong AI.



You're right, most jobs nowadays are in the service sector, and depending on what metrics you use, they do provide better working conditions. But I believe you're wrong in assuming automation won't be disruptive to most people's livelihood.

I mean, let's take your example of the supermarket: I don't know where you live, but near me I have several supermarkets that have a few "self-service" check out counters; there is no reason why this can't eliminate everyone working at that station. Information areas? A couple of computers can do the trick for most things, and they can contact someone as a last resort (and probably remotely). A lot of the shelves can be redesigned to be filled in automatically; I believe I saw an article with an example some months ago (actually it might have been in a restaurant, I'm not sure). Supplying the goods to the supermarket itself could potentially be done with self-driving vehicles, with only a few people at the supermarket to offload stuff. What did I miss? Cleaning duties? I'd say close to half of the workers could be laid off in a very short amount of time if we really pressed this.

Now, considering the amount of people that are currently employed in the service sector, and considering that many of the jobs could be automated tomorrow, how do you expect to easily retrain large amounts of people into new jobs? And even then, what do you expect them to do? Post in a forum for a living? Humans can adapt only so quickly. And not everyone is going to be able to start a new company; in fact, most of the jobs that could be easily replaced don't pay a lot to begin with, so we're talking about people that probably already live day to day with less than comfortable disposable income.

They never attacked each other en-mass, that's true; but there were a number of small scale conflicts that we were lucky didn't escalate. And I use the word "lucky" in this context intentionally; the Cuban missile crisis is a good example of why, though there are several others.

EDIT:


Hmm, to professional youtube/facebook like giver, professional forum poster, etc.. 

Considering you're a Newbie, and will continue to be one for 2 more weeks, that's not very likely to happen. However, you can take a look at this thread, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=615953.0, for information on the current sig campaigns, and then try joining either "Bitcoin Scratchticket" or "BTCX2".

It's only inevitable if we continue to rely on the current system; which itself is not the only option.

I'd personally recommend something more radical, but simple solutions to mitigate the increase in inequality might be possible for now, though they are only short term solutions at best: reduce working hours to account for the lack of jobs; pace automation in a way that allows humans to gradually adapt; test and implement universal income (like mincome); etc.

Hmm, I hadn't heard of this story yet; still, it strikes me as being weird that he got arrested for ignoring something that could very well be a lie, or someone's idea of a joke. I mean, if it was a situation in which there was a clear and obvious illegal operation going on, and he willingly helped (by selling the btc in this case), then I could understand his arrest; but that wasn't the case, right? Did this hold in court (or is it expected to, if the case still hasn't been to court)?

Depends on your tastes I guess, but considering the Off-Topic section, that's probably true for everyone. Plus, you can always create a thread yourself if there is something in particular you would like to talk about.

I take it that you have never heard of the Wiktionary project?

Just post naturally; if you find a subject that interests you, don't limit yourself to 3 posts and call it a day. On the other hand, if there is nothing going on that you feel like participating in, don't force yourself to; that would in a sense be spam.

This might lead you to a large variation in the number of posts on a day to day basis, but you'll definitely have more fun this way.

I agree, but I would also add: making sure that the flash plugin is set to "ask to activate" (and probably most/all other plugins as well). This means that flash isn't automatically loaded and starts running on its own; you have to confirm that you want that behavior for the page you're in (which is basically just clicking a button).

How so? The themes are pretty diverse, from comedies to psychological horror shows, passing through everything in-between. The only thing anime has as a distinct feature from any other type of animation is the fact that it's made in Japan.

If you like to see any series/movies at all, I'm sure there are a couple anime/OVA that you would like.