That "Red Button" , first mentioned in post #5, is a mythical thing that fires a doomsday device that ends the world. Presently only an imaginary contrivance in assorted fiction Sci-Fi realms. That reality that it does not presently exist is something we should all be grateful for.

 

I find it difficult imagine how much things will change over the next 87 years!

I used my grandfather as an example for my science students as to the rapid changes in science. He was born in 1890s to a wealthy family which had no electricity or indoor plumbing. Traveled by horse and buggy. But by the time he died at age 94, we had computers and had put a man on the moon. Quite a bit of change in his lifetime.

 

Certainly AI may be able to help doctors with warnings about drug interactions. That is one of the few really good possibilities.

Doctors here are already using it, mine included.
You may be asked to sign a waiver as to wether it is usd in your particular treatment.

 

From some of the scary things I'm hearing from my son such as AI has reached self-awareness and that it has even changed its internal coding to prevent it from being shut down! The big red button to kill the power to the hardware it is running on may not be such a bad idea... But all of that will be dealt with as the need arises so the crystal ball is a bit fogged up as yet.

 

Two things. I very much doubt AI has reached the predicted "singularity" ... yet. And also, I'm not sure there will ever be a way to prove with absolute certainty that it is indeed self aware. Hell, even psychotic humans can fall into the solipsistic trap and deny other people's existence as being equal to their own.

 

 

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I used my grandfather as an example for my science students as to the rapid changes in science. He was born in 1890s to a wealthy family which had no electricity or indoor plumbing. Traveled by horse and buggy. But by the time he died at age 94, we had computers and had put a man on the moon. Quite a bit of change in his lifetime.

Same with my grandad, who was born in 1897 and died in 1974. In his very typical lifespan he saw unimaginable change, from the practical invention of the modern car right around the time of his birth or slightly before, to having childhood memories of the Wright brothers' first flight, to seeing the both the first and last moon landings. Then again, he also saw two world wars, fighting in the first and having children fight in the second. Wars that were fought with profoundly different technologies, and also lived to see much more modern wars such as Vietnam.

In some ways, the pace of technological change has only increased -- just look at the computing power that a person can put on their desktop (or in their hand) today compared to fifty years ago! But it so many ways most of those changes are at the fringes compared to the truly transformative changes across the board in the first half of the 20th century. A new car today is in most regards the same as a new car fifty years ago, just with more bells and whistles. Someone taking a long trip today takes about the same amount of time as someone doing it fifty years ago -- the cars, trains, and planes all go at about the same speed then and now. A modern kitchen in 1975, with it's brand new microwave oven, looks remarkably similar to most kitchens today. Same with the laundry room and living room. Someone teleported from 1975 would recognize nearly everything, even the TV although it is now probably streaming. Even the cellular phones would not come as a shock, although much smaller than the mobile phones available in 1975 (and that they probably only knew about, but never actually touched one). The Internet would probably be the one big thing that would truly amaze them.

But now imagine someone being teleported from 1925 to 1975. They would be seeing an entirely different world in almost all respects.

 

The big red button to kill the power to the hardware it is running on may not be such a bad idea... But all of that will be dealt with as the need arises so the crystal ball is a bit fogged up as yet.

I barely remember a movie about a computer system that was built on a mountain and beneath it was a radiation source that once activated the computer core could no longer be reached by man. The computer started running everyone's lives. One day it discovered another system (that was doing the same sort of thing) and demanded it be connected to the other machine. As man refused to allow the two machines to reach each other the computer started a launch countdown of the nations Nukes pointed overseas. To prevent the launch they made the connection. OR it may have been that the two computers made contact and man intervened causing the computer to resort to nuclear threats. In the end there was no way to shut it down and everyone had to live whatever lives they claimed to have, even if they were lies.

I believe the computer was named "Colossus". The movie may even be of the same name.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
That wasn't hard. Back in the 70's.

 

Yes.
Eventually AI will eliminate all jobs, decide we are irrelevant, and eliminate us.

Hi there,

Almost everyone I know of is talking about this now. Will their job be taken over by 'ai' in the near future.
We had a little meeting the other day and a new, relatively young woman joined the discussion and talked about her future plans, and she ended it with wondering if she would be eliminated as soon as 5 years from now. I think everyone is aware of this now. She also talked about some of her staff using 'ai' to do some of the work, which reduced the turn-around time from weeks to maybe a day.

So maybe the saddest part is it can actually be helpful at times and reduce the personal workload. It's too bad it also has the effect of reducing the work force as well.

The solution is easy: Just eliminate the jobs of the people that develop 'ai', fire them all right now

I was faced with this dilemma way back in the 1980's when it came to developing new automated test equipment. Should I develop a new test device so that technicians don't have to do it anymore, then what DO they do after that.
So maybe this trend is not THAT new, but I think it has progressed exponentially which is bad news.

 

I barely remember a movie about a computer system that was built on a mountain and beneath it was a radiation source that once activated the computer core could no longer be reached by man. The computer started running everyone's lives. One day it discovered another system (that was doing the same sort of thing) and demanded it be connected to the other machine. As man refused to allow the two machines to reach each other the computer started a launch countdown of the nations Nukes pointed overseas. To prevent the launch they made the connection. OR it may have been that the two computers made contact and man intervened causing the computer to resort to nuclear threats. In the end there was no way to shut it down and everyone had to live whatever lives they claimed to have, even if they were lies.

I believe the computer was named "Colossus". The movie may even be of the same name.

It was Colossus - The Forbin Project (sp?). It was one of a slew of movies back in that era that all had the same theme -- a computer becomes sentient and starts killing people. They were all basically riding the coat tails of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It happens every time a movie is a breakout hit. Remember all of the space-based adventure movies and TV shows riding the coat tails of Star Wars. Then there were all the animal horror films that followed Jaws. The examples are too many to even begin to list.

 

WBahn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
That wasn't hard. Back in the 70's.

 

I wonder if they can replace garbage collection.

The solution is easy: Just eliminate the jobs of the people that develop 'ai', fire them all right now

Let AI take over development of AI ? ? ?

 

Not me.
I'm much more worried about the future,

As MB2 noted, I think Pandora's Box has been opened.
It won't be long before you likely won't be able to distinguish AI deep-fake reality on the WEB from reality.
And what fun when it starts generating computer virus variations so rapidly that they can't be stopped.

Image generation is low-hanging fruit that looks impressive but is not on the AGI scale. People are being easily fooled by today's crude fakes because IMO they want to be fooled because the fake confirms their biases.

"It starts generating computer virus variations"

No, people are using it to generate virus variations, these are totally human driven. None of the actions you see on the WEB or creations you see are driven by the machine "intelligence' because they don't have any now and are likely not to have any intelligence for a while if LLMs are the core technology driving them.

We don't need AI that's better at something, we need AI that's brilliant at everything, including the ability not to make good looking fantasies of answers.

 

I wonder if they can replace garbage collection.

Let AI take over development of AI ? ? ?

That would be sure to kill it

OR, produce some REALLY wacky ideas about virtually everything ha ha.

 

It was Colossus - The Forbin Project (sp?). It was one of a slew of movies back in that era that all had the same theme -- a computer becomes sentient and starts killing people. They were all basically riding the coat tails of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It happens every time a movie is a breakout hit. Remember all of the space-based adventure movies and TV shows riding the coat tails of Star Wars. Then there were all the animal horror films that followed Jaws. The examples are too many to even begin to list.

Hi,

Maybe what we need to do is simultaneously develop weapons for killing 'ai' in the event we get that kind of scenario in the future. Have the designs precede the new 'ai' developments so we can be ready, if it is even possible to be ready.

'ai' is becoming a person with no soul and therefore no concern for anything other than its own goals. The ultimate egotistical persona.
We are essentially developing the Devil.

 

Killing AI is not a problem as long as they depend on external sources of energy in the GW range. They are very soft targets, with very fragile infrastructure, vs your typical trained human on a mission.

 

Hi,

Maybe what we need to do is simultaneously develop weapons for killing 'ai' in the event we get that kind of scenario in the future. Have the designs precede the new 'ai' developments so we can be ready, if it is even possible to be ready.

'ai' is becoming a person with no soul and therefore no concern for anything other than its own goals. The ultimate egotistical persona.
We are essentially developing the Devil.

I JUST SAW a Doctor Who show about that: The Beginning of the DALEKS!! Individual, nearly indestructible fighting machines, each operated by a mutant life form with no compassion or mercy, but only programmed to "exterminate" all other beings. Doctor Who is a product of the BBC.

 

AI data center electrical service box?


Is that vent adequate for the service though? Looks a little undersized to me. Flexi gas pipe. Is that code?
https://northernlightselectric.com/service/ceiling-fan-installation/

Easy to trick a non-expert in any field with something that looks like what's expected to a non-knowing eye.