"protect and serve" should mean something. Otherwise it is just a meaningless sticker on the side of a prowl car (or tank).
]]>Does this you are even more locked into the Laundry, or does it mean that you can write something new?
]]>I must say, yet again, I prefer the UK cover. It catches the eye and stands out.
]]>If only Dave and Frank had used sarcasm, the outcome of the Jupiter mission might have been so very different!
]]>The higher education system will largely be solved with accredited online courses. At this point, accreditation is in the hands of universities as gatekeepers, but I see that changing soon. This will get rid of the ridiculous education cost burden, especially in the US, with the onerous loan terms.
A black swan pandemic could fix the wage and housing issue, much like the Black Death did. Ideally it would hit the older generation, opening up the availability of remaining jobs and raising wages. If science and technology don't allow that to happen, then we may face another very long period of increasing wealth disparity as outlined by Thomas Piketty. Alternatively, mass starvation due to AGW impacts on crop failures could reduce the global supply of labor which would have 2ndry effects on postindustrial nation labor supply and rates. Very dystopian for those of us born in the decades after WWII.
I don't think a war is going to solve the problem, as this would at best use up the younger generation. More likely robots will be the main casualties. Unless massive attacks on civilians occurs, which would be a game changer.
What history tells us is that nations don't usually self-correct to reduce wealth inequality. They collapse or get replaced by different nations or powers. In the modern world, this could take little more than a few generations. Our problem this time around is that there are no more fresh "lands" to turn into nations, except the oceans. Accees to space is going to have to decline orders of magnitude to open that frontier, and we will still have the potential problem of indentured servitude to pay for the trip.
]]>I was really hoping that you would write the "Palimpsest" novelization. After all, the novella has been "presold" :-) Are you really having second/nth thoughts about doing this because of the time travel issues you have raised in other threads?
]]>Trained responses, emotional responses. - faster than thinking. "Fast thinking" c.f. Kahneman. This is probably what Birk was alluding to with his martial arts example. It is also the almost reflexive response of sports players, amongst others.
Deliberative thinking ("slow thinking"). Very much slower. You can write using your trained fingers far faster than you can create deliberated thought output.
The problem with neural interfaces is that they will need to be able to determine the desired output from the multiplicity of circulating thoughts surrounding the desired output. It will be very tedious if you will need to focus on every thought in order to get a good output. For example, as I write this, I am also thinking about other things, but allowing my executive brain to "time slice" in order for my fingers to type these words.
]]>100bn fiber optic cables, one for each neuron, is going to take up a lot of space in the cranium. Even worse if glial cells have to be included. I think we need to be talking molecular scale wires. My thought is that you would want a multiplexed wiring system with addressed sensor/effectors to reduce wiring volume, which could be electrical using conductive polymers.
]]>There will be better cognitive prostheses, but I suspect there will be a limit due to the processing speed of our brains. It is one thing to have a device that could instantly retrieve a memory, compute a result, or overlay augmented reality over our visual cortex, but we are still limited by our ability to process meaning and reflect. Without that, it all becomes a reflex action, which we can understand only after a fraction of a second at best. Chained analyses will still be limited by the speed of our thinking, which is essentially the slowest link in the chain.
An AI would not have that problem. Therefore, to my way of thinking, the drive will be to eliminate as much of the wetware involvement as possible. But this will be like having self-driving cars, rather than a manually driven car. We will simply be along for the ride, rather than doing the driving. And as with a self driving car, the interface between driver and car systems will be reduced, not increased, so there is less need to have a sophisticated, low level, neural interface.
]]>It may be that Hofstadter is correct that machine intelligence as currently done by AI practitioners is going in the wrong direction, however I also think that humans and machines effectively co-opt each other. So we may see a singularity in the sense that Greg Tingey implies, another major technological growth spurt with humans at least nominally in control. After that, if machines can emulate the uniquely human intelligence features that drive our creativity, then pure machine intelligence takes over.
]]>But what if the case is the opposite of that? What if the huge complexity in wetware is a problem, and the brain is constructed to reduce the noise resulting from very imperfect components. IOW, simulating larger scale structures may give us a working brain with far less effort (still very large, of course, using current technology).
As someone mentioned up thread, intelligence augmentation might be a very good hybrid route for the nearer term to produce smarter brains.
Very capable, but non-sentient machines are going to be devastating to human work and the structure of societies. Machines might be able to adapt to rapidly changing conditions, but humans cannot.
]]>IIRC, Iain Banks' Transitions had a similar-ish concept of multiverses and special people who had the power to slip between them. Transitions was published in 2009, 5 years after The Family Trade.
Do you think Iain also saw this as an unexploited niche and dived in, potentially breaking your rules given what else could have been in the pipeline? Or is it just coincidence?
]]>Hahahaha! I just snorted my(dumb brewed)tea. You haven't worked on/dealt with Wall Street, have you?
Bitcoin may well not be the answer, but I would very much like a transaction mechanism that is anonymous and not vulnerable to simple theft. I am personally sick and tired of stores collecting my purchasing information. I don't want to have to go to ATMs to get cash that could be stolen. I don't trust S/W companies to offer no strings attached electronic wallets.
I want convenience and anonymity. Is that too much to ask for?
]]>With enough connected teapots and existing data, it can make a good pot just knowing the tea to be used. It could also adjust its output based on your preferences deviating from the statistical expectations. Designed correctly, it could even warm the pot if needed.
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