[David Cooper]

Your problem would be finding a problem,

When was first computer invented?
The ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800 square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons.


What did we ever do before there was computers? Obvious we did not survive before 1946 without them .   

Hang on a minute! we survived a measured 1946 years without them . 

Wheres your argument now?

Who and whose argument? I can't work out what you think you've undermined.

[David Cooper]

The time we spend at climbing is a lot longer than the time we spend at the summit, so we better like climbing.

Climbing can be unpleasant, but the view from the top usually more than makes up for it, and if there's no view due to low cloud, there can still be a sense of satisfaction even if the whole walk was hellish.

You talk as if you didn't like the climbing, as if you weren't imagining much reward once at the summit, or as if you were imagining not even  reaching it.

I always like climbing, as it happens, but writing software is deeply unhealthy and isolating. There are satisfactions along the way when new modules are finished and work properly, and particularly when they work first go without needing any debugging, but when a project takes many years and it's only at the end of it that you will see the thing do something useful, it's a long grind that wears you down. I sometimes have to take a month or more off just to recover the motivation to go on with it, although I've found the best way to fix it is just to keep switching between different projects as soon as one becomes too much, so there's always something moving ahead at a fast pace without any time being lost.

I hope you don't feel you are losing your time talking to me. :0)

It's always useful to get the perspective of other people.

[guest39538]

Your problem would be finding a problem,

When was first computer invented?
The ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800 square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons.


What did we ever do before there was computers? Obvious we did not survive before 1946 without them .   

Hang on a minute! we survived a measured 1946 years without them . 

Wheres your argument now?

Who and whose argument? I can't work out what you think you've undermined.

Your argument?  You are ''arguing'' it would be good to have a super Ai running the world aren't you ?

Am I misunderstanding your ''argument''?

[David Cooper]

On the point about AGI making us obsolete, it's only purpose is to help us - if it makes us obsolete, it has failed. All it will do is remove the need for us to do work that we don't want to do, plus some of the work that we might want to do but which it does better than we can. When it comes to solving the big problems, 99.999999% of people never solve any anyway, so it isn't much of a loss for us, and for everyone who does manage to solve a big problem, there are thousands of others who spent their lives working on the same problems and failed, so that's a lot of misery that can be done away with.

[David Cooper]

Your argument?  You are ''arguing'' it would be good to have a super Ai running the world aren't you ?

Am I misunderstanding your ''argument''?

I've no idea whether you're understanding it or not, but if you imagine that a counterargument to it is that we managed for thousands of years before there were computers, you've missed the point. Vicious bastards tend to run things and murder enormous numbers of people - it has always been this way. Computers haven't stopped that yet, although the early ones were used to help one side win a war against a powerful fascist, the they made a useful impact from the start. But we need AGI to make the world properly peaceful by preventing murderers getting into positions of power, and by removing the ones that already hold it. World war three will be co-ordinated coups all round the world at a single moment, and all the murderous dictators will be brought down. Only AGI can organise this.

[guest39538]

is remove the need for us to do work that we don't want to do,

I really like that scenario but wouldn't that see a fall of capitalism ?  I mean who owns the robots and what would people have to trade for goods if they weren't earning money ?

[David Cooper]

I really like that scenario but wouldn't that see a fall of capitalism ?  I mean who owns the robots and what would people have to trade for goods if they weren't earning money ?

It doesn't matter who owns the robots - the work they're doing is not work done by the owners, so the owners can be forced to pay 99.99999% tax on their earnings (after costs), and that tax money becomes the source of an income for everyone. It will then be up to each person to spend wisely. There will also be environmental taxes to punish anything damaging and to counter that damage. This will be a triumph of capitalism and of communism, and the two things will merge into the combination of both that they should always have been.

[guest39538]

I really like that scenario but wouldn't that see a fall of capitalism ?  I mean who owns the robots and what would people have to trade for goods if they weren't earning money ?

It doesn't matter who owns the robots - the work they're doing is not work done by the owners, so the owners can be forced to pay 99.99999% tax on their earnings (after costs), and that tax money becomes the source of an income for everyone. It will then be up to each person to spend wisely. There will also be environmental taxes to punish anything damaging and to counter that damage. This will be a triumph of capitalism and of communism, and the two things will merge into the combination of both that they should always have been.

It does seem an intuitive idea that is very well thought out.  Let us take a step back for the moment and consider the world being governed by such an Ai unit.   How do you program empathy into the unit?  I mean could it share a tear in sadness with others?

[Le Repteux]

Feelings are impossible to code, so an AI would have to simulate empathy and sadness if it had to show some, the same as if you had to show empathy to a bored chemist. :0)

[guest39538]

Feelings are impossible to code, so an AI would have to simulate empathy and sadness if it had to show some, the same as if you had to show empathy to a bored chemist. :0)

Who's ''you'' in your context? 

We more like , it is Mr C you mentioned .

I like his grumpy attitude it drives a person to try and learn just to piss him off.

I don't think Mr C has any empathy .I like his grumpy attitude it drives a person to try and learn just to piss him off.

[Le Repteux]

I think we are all fundamentally selfish, so maybe we are all hiding it when we show some empathy after all, which means that we might only be simulating it the same way a computer would have to.

[guest39538]

I think we are all fundamentally selfish, so maybe we are all hiding it when we show some empathy after all, which means that we might only be simulating it the same way a computer would have to.

If it wasn't for the fact at this present moment in time I have next to nothing ,not even a property on the monopoly board to leave my children, I would objectively give all my ideas away unselfishly.   I am not being selfish in trying to leave my children just a little of something which is much more than nothing. So I suppose it is selfish and  not selfish at the same time.
The monopoly board is so full we have no choice but to be selfish in some ways .  When it comes to my kids my empathy is defined objectively by them, they have to be my priority , the world comes next of course.
So that is how I think things work anyway .

[Le Repteux]

It is certainly selfish to hope that your children will feel good to think about you.

[guest39538]

It is certainly selfish to hope that your children will feel good to think about you.

So you think it is selfish that I want my children to be proud of me when I am gone because I achieved something in life as opposed to achieving nothing ?

[Le Repteux]

Of course it is, otherwise you wouldn't wait for a recognition. I don't mean that selfishness is bad though, it's simply how things work, so I think we can benefit from knowing about it, which is incidentally also selfish.

[guest39538]

Of course it is, otherwise you wouldn't wait for a recognition.

Scratches head,fails to see the logic?

[Le Repteux]

Selfishness invites us to build groups, because groups are better for our own survival, but it has the side effect of feeling good, a feeling that we attribute to what we do for the group, which is empathetic. I always feel ambivalent when I thank people or when people thank me, and I think it is because I consider it is still a selfish move.

[guest39538]

Selfishness invites us to build groups, because groups are better for our own survival, but it has the side effect of feeling good, a feeling that we attribute to what we do for the group, which is empathetic. I always feel ambivalent when I thank people or when people thank me, and I think it is because I consider it is still a selfish move.

Isn't thanking someone, empathy in return ? Consideration for  letting them know they was appreciated? 

Groups do have a better survival rate for sure working as a group.

[David Cooper]

Grumpy attitude? I simply don't need to comment on things that are right, so it's a continual stream of posts pointing out errors. You'll get the same from AGI, and it won't be grumpy either.

[guest39538]

Grumpy attitude? I simply don't need to comment on things that are right, so it's a continual stream of posts pointing out errors. You'll get the same from AGI, and it won't be grumpy either.

Have you never tried to picture the poster ?   Grumpy in a good way lol

I couldn't imagine Ai would come across anyway ?

Have we switched over to bots?

The conversation has changed rather....