http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/20/eric-schmidt-cohen-book-extract
Honestly, I think a lot of what is said in this article will probably happen. It is largely a positive spin, accept the bit about privacy being an old-fashion value.
I think there is a gloss-over of what all the automation will mean for the world's population. The demand for labor is going to continue to drop, it is pretty easy to see from the trends that are starting now. I think there is going to have to be a major shift in values unlike anything we've had before.
In 2033 we may have a natural unemployment level of 30-50%. So, what will we do with so many people who are not able to work full time? Maybe someday there will be a ban on machine labor? I don't really see that happening. More likely there will have to be some type of employment rotation system, or restrictions on work weeks or some other labor sharing scheme.
The other alternatives are do nothing and have a tremendous underclass, or have a massive social welfare program.
Any of the above cases remind my of plenty of scifi stories over the years. Pick your dystopia/utopia. The gadgets should be fun though.
>we may have a natural unemployment level of 30-50%
I agree. I see tectonic shifts in employment coming for first world countries due mostly to robotics vs high labor costs.
The bots aren't going to have to fight us, they're going to starve us.
Start storing wine & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Italian_cheeses
Get off the GRID and enjoy life.
PS: Don't be EVIL...
>> PS: Don't be EVIL...
hahaha, I have heard that before cant remember where though
Quote from: Mackin USA on April 22, 2013, 11:20:21 PM
Start storing wine & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Italian_cheeses
And don't forget guns... maybe the EMP variety.
What a dreamer. :D I think he misses two key points.
One is the assumption that our brains struggle with the data we have now. Well they do, but only because they are not trained properly.
QuoteOur own neurological limits, which lead us to forgetfulness and oversights,
If we don't use them at all, then I think this will get worse, where as we could be training them to be better. There are some stunning displays of memory these days.
The other is he never once mentions energy. To me, the world economy is one of Energy, not money. He is assuming we will have a plentiful supply all round the world. I think it is quite a challenge for 20 years time. In 20 years, there might be a couple more nuclear power stations in the UK, and we might be fracking Gas, but it is an uncertain world. Will it be enough to heat our homes, and power our vehicles? Fracked gas should hold out in the US for more than 20 years I guess.
Just discovered the latest range Rover has 3 massage types on the passenger seats.
Its here already.
http://www.landrover.com/gb/en/lr/all-new-range-rover/explore/autobiography/
QuoteAn Executive Class Seating option is available on the Vogue SE and Autobiography models and consists of two individual leather seats, including 3-mode massage feature, climate control, power recline (with memory function) winged headrests and extended centre console. A selection of seat style packs means that travelling in the Range Rover is an indulgence.
Totally agree about the employment issue. Will define the next generation. Al Gore goes into some detail about it in his new book The Future. Definitely worth a read.
I'd be surprised if most of the stuff in the article didn't happen by 2033. The only things that seem to me in the realms of science fiction by 2033 are memory and social prosthetics. Give it another 20 years from then though and they'll probably be achievable. After all, they've already successfully tested memory prosthetics on rats.
In terms of humans leading a predominantly machine controlled life by 2033, and without wanting to offend anyone of religious persuasion (which is not my intention at all), I've thought for some time that the machine intelligence as described in the article will be the first time a God (AI) will exist that there will be evidence for. An all-knowing, unseen God, that controls our lives.
Ed
>employment
"Manually, it takes a team of painters 4.5 hours to do the first coat. The robots do it in 24 minutes with perfect quality."
http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021082952_boeing777xml.html
QuoteTo me, the world economy is one of Energy, not money.
Our over-dependence on non-renewable energy sources is a HUGE issue that few business or political leaders seem to comprehend.
Quote from: buckworks on June 04, 2013, 01:51:53 PM
QuoteTo me, the world economy is one of Energy, not money.
Our over-dependence on non-renewable energy sources is a HUGE issue that few business or political leaders seem to comprehend.
I think you can just say "non-renewable resources". We are stretching systems to the brink in many areas. I would say more troubling than the non-renewable energy is that many people have no clue that water in much of America is a non-renewable. The Oglala aquifer is going dry and already some of the most productive land in America is becoming unfarmable. The aquifer filled over thousands of years at a very slow rate as glaciers melted. It has been sucked dry in really less than a century and, last I read, it supplied over half of the irrigation water between the Mississippi and the Rockies.
Similar problems are on the horizon in California.
Our cell phones and computers all depend on rare earth metals which will get harder and harder to find.
The list goes on. Now I think eventually people will solve these problems. There have been many times in human history where we have gone past the carrying capacity of the land and have run out of resources. Europe enjoyed great weather and thus great prosperity from 1000 to 1250, but suddenly the climate cooled and much arable land went out of production at higher altitudes and lattitudes. Famine returned after a two-century absence and was ultimately only solved by killing of 1/3 of the population in the Black Death. It took 200 years for population to recover, but which time agricultural methods had improved such that the so-called Mini Ice Age of the late 16th century did not lead to famines like in the 13th century.
In any case, I see us at a similar moment - resources stretched to the limit and weather changing. In this case the weather won't lead directly to fewer resources by directly shortening the growing season. But a warmer drier climate will mean that our resource-intensive agriculture, dependent on huge amounts of irrigation and fossil fuel, will be challenged to continue to produce at those levels. Already in California it is rare for farmers to be allowed their full requested allocation of irrigation water.
We can conserve our way out of some of it. There is so much waste (please hold while I go shut off that light in the kitchen that is doing nothing useful). But we will reach limits and unless replacement technologies come into play as fast as needed, there is going to be serious disruption.
Interesting book (not particularly well-written though, unfortunately) is The World in 2050. The author takes what he considers "conservative" models, meaning models that predict on the low end of disruption, and things still come out pretty scary.
One of the main things he points out is that even if we increase production of renewable energy 10x, we do not come close to meeting the needs for 2050 on renewables. I forget the percentage, but it's very low. This means that we are likely, indeed almost certain, to see *more* of our energy come from coal, the dirtiest fuel in use right now (CO2 being only part of it - it also pumps mercury into the atmosphere and more radiation than nuclear even when you count Chernobyl, Japan, etc).
So I think the Jetson's future Schmidt talks about in the article is one possibility. And if we solve fundamental systems problems, I would say it's conservative. I expect to see more and more prosthetic implants. At first blind people will get artificial eyes. But we are rapidly approaching a world in which prosthetics are better than nature. Oscar Pistorius would never have made the Olympics on the legs he was born with. Double-amputee and MIT engineering professor Hugh Herr argues that we are on the brink of a serious social reorientation as prosthetics out-perform natural limbs/eyes/ears and society has to confront a "handicap" population that is stronger, faster, has better hearing and eyesight than people with their OEM legs and eyes. At a certain point, if my doom and gloom scenarios from above are solved, I expect to see helathy people with implants as a matter of course.
I think people are preparing themselves for it mentally right now. I hear people talk about their photos and say "those are my memories". We've already gone from storing those memories in books in the attic to carrying them around in our pockets on devices that can be misplaced. I think soon, perhaps by 2033, people will find the idea of being able to leave their memories in a coffee shop unacceptable and will want the memory implants.
Then again, maybe the survivors will be out in the wilderness surviving on berries and squirrel meat and explaining to their children that the long hard surfaces they see around them once carried climate-controlled rolling things that covered more miles in 20 minutes than they would cover in a whole day....
>coal
don't forget the ash slurries
https://www.google.com/search?q=coal+ash+disaster&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ
excellent post, ergo.
>resources
at the root, population growth is the problem. there is hope on that front, but there are signs all around that a self-correction is already underway.
Quoteat the root, population growth is the problem. there is hope on that front, but there are signs all around that a self-correction is already underway.
Interesting, not looked at that. I thought China and India were still expanding at an alarming rate?
Although one Myth I have been lead to believe might not hold water:
http://www.loonwatch.com/2012/09/10-myths-about-muslims-in-the-west/
QuoteIn my new book The Myth of the Muslim Tide, I chronicle the widespread misunderstanding of Muslim immigration to the West. As with Jews and Catholics before, I discuss that Muslims are being seen as an impossible-to-integrate, fast-reproducing invasion force who follow a religion that's more an ideology of conquest than a faith. Using the latest facts and figures, I illustrate the far less alarming truth about these new arrivals.
>self-correction
It will be of our making but not to our liking...
1. Amphibians Are Dying Out (see also ocean fish stocks)
2. All the Megafauna Are Dead
3. Extinctions Are Happening At A Higher Than Average Rate
4. Ocean Acidification
5. Climate Change (see also arctic methane release)
6. Invasive Species Are Everywhere
Reading around provides a better, yet far scarier, overview of all the slippery slopes converging but this page does a decent (though hyping a book) job of summarizing the main ones.
http://io9.com/7-signs-we-are-heading-for-a-mass-extinction-5950630
Bloody hell, you guys know how to put a damper on the day!
Better start saving then - http://undergroundshelters.com/
"I am just going outside and may be some time"
Here is something hopeful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
A little something to think about
http://www.akademifantasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/image010.jpg
<update>
>self-correction
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/25/arizona-professor-forget-climate-humans-dont-have-10-years/
"locked in", "call to action" ???
It is obvious that we are already the cause of the ongoing current mass extinction; to me the big question is are we The Great Filter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter)?
Quote from: rcjordan on November 27, 2016, 12:48:09 PM
<update>
>self-correction
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/25/arizona-professor-forget-climate-humans-dont-have-10-years/
I am what many would call a "climate-change alarmist." I believe that if we don't take dramatic action right now and have falling CO2 emissions within 5-10 years, it may be game over. I do not believe we have ten years to wait (which is what I though this article was going to be about).
I say that not to open that can of worms, but simply to state that even as someone who is deeply worried and sympathetic to "alarmism", I still think the guy quoted in this article is off his rocker.
We will not be extinct in 10 years. People who push this sort of claptrap are as bad as the people who paid by the fossil fuel industry to say that it isn't happening at all. In fact, I wonder if that guy *is* paid by the fossil fuel industry. The only thing as helpful to them as the belief that climate change is not happening is the belief that it is too late to do anything. The extremists on both sides are preventing us from getting to a solution (which I believe is still possible, the clock is ticking down to the final moments).
More and more in interviews with actual climate scientists who are not in the pay of the fossil fuel industry, I hear them forced to address the people tweeting fake catastrophe news as well as the deniers.
Oh my people...
<update>
>population problem
In a graph
http://imgur.com/rvelmdq