Best products from r/Futurology

This was originally posted as an image but got deleted for IMO in this case, the irrelevant reason that picture posts are not allowed, though this was all about the text. We had an interesting discussion going: http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2mh0y1/elon_musks_deleted_edge_comment_from_yesterday_on/

I'll just post my relevant contributions to the original to maybe get things started.



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And it's not like he's saying this based on his opinion after a thorough study online like you or I could do. No, he has access to the real state of the art:

> Musk was an early investor in AI firm DeepMind, which was later acquired by Google, and in March made an investment San Francisco-based Vicarious, another company working to improve machine intelligence.

> Speaking to US news channel CNBC, Musk explained that his investments were, "not from the standpoint of actually trying to make any investment return… I like to just keep an eye on what's going on with artificial intelligence. I think there is potentially a dangerous outcome there."

*Also I love it that Elon isn't afraid to speak his mind like this. I think it might well be PR or the boards of his companies that reigned him in here. Also in television interviews he is so open and honest, too bad he didn't speak those words there.

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I'm currently reading Superintelligence which is mentioned in the article and by Musk. One of the ways he describes an unstoppable scenario is that the AI seems to function perfectly and is super friendly and helpful.

However on the side it's developing micro-factories which can assemble from a specifically coded string of DNA (this is already possible to a limited extent). These factories then use their coded instructions to multiply and spread and then start building enormous amount of nanobots.

Once critical mass and spread is reached they could instantly wipe out humanity through some kind of poison/infection. The AI isn't physical, but the only thing it needs in this case is to place an order to a DNA printing service (they exist) and then mail it to someone it has manipulated into adding water, nutrients, and releasing the DNA nanofactory.

If the AI explodes in intelligence as predicted in some scenarios this could be set up within weeks/months of it becoming aware. We would have nearly no chance of catching this in time. Bostrom gives the caveat that this was only a viable scenario he could dream up, the super intelligence should by definition be able to make much more ingenious methods.

Most of my stuff is going to focus around consciousness and AI.

BOOKS

Ray Kurzweil - How to Create a Mind - Ray gives an intro to neuroscience and suggests ways we might build intelligent machines. This is a fun and easy book to read.

Ray Kurzweil - TRANSCEND - Ray and Dr. Terry Grossman tell you how to live long enough to live forever. This is a very inspirational book.

*I'd skip Kurzweil's older books. The newer ones largely cover the stuff in the older ones anyhow.

Jeff Hawkins - On Intelligence - Engineer and Neuroscientist, Jeff Hawkins, presents a comprehensive theory of intelligence in the neocortex. He goes on to explain how we can build intelligent machines and how they might change the world. He takes a more grounded, but equally interesting, approach to AI than Kurzweil.

Stanislas Dehaene - Consciousness and the Brain - Someone just recommended this book to me so I have not had a chance to read the whole thing. It explains new methods researchers are using to understand what consciousness is.

ONLINE ARTICLES

George Dvorsky - Animal Uplift - We can do more than improve our own minds and create intelligent machines. We can improve the minds of animals! But should we?

David Shultz - Least Conscious Unit - A short story that explores several philosophical ideas about consciousness. The ending may make you question what is real.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Consciousness - The most well known philosophical ideas about consciousness.

VIDEOS

Socrates - Singularity Weblog - This guy interviews the people who are making the technology of tomorrow, today. He's interviewed the CEO of D-Wave, Ray Kurzweil, Michio Kaku, and tons of less well known but equally interesting people.

David Chalmers - Simulation and the Singularity at The Singularity Summit 2009 - Respected Philosopher, David Chalmers, talks about different approaches to AI and a little about what might be on the other side of the singularity.

Ben Goertzel - Singularity or Bust - Mathematician and computer Scientist, Ben Goertzel, goes to China to create Artificial General Intelligence funded by the Chinese Government. Unfortunately they cut the program.



PROGRAMMING

Daniel Shiffman - The Nature of Code - After reading How to Create a Mind you will probably want to get started with a neural network (or Hidden Markov model) of your own. This is your hello world. If you get past this and the math is too hard use this

Encog - A neural network API written in your favorite language

OpenCV - Face and object recognition made easy(ish).

My suggestion is to opensource it under the GPL. That would mean people can use your GPL code in commercial enterprises, but they can't resell it as commercial software without paying for a license.

By opensourcing it, people can verify your claims and help you improve the software. You don't have to worry about languishing as an unknown, or taking venture capital and perhaps ultimately losing control of your invention in a sale or IPO. Scientists can use it to help advance knowledge, without paying the large license fees that a commercial owner might charge. People will find all sorts of uses for it that you never imagined. Some of them will pay you substantial money to let them turn it into specialized commercial products, others will pay you large consulting fees to help them apply the GPL version to their own problems.

You could also write a book on how it all works, how you figured it out, the history of your company, etc. If you're not a writer you could team up with one. Kurzweil and Jeff Hawkins have both published some pretty popular books like this, and there are others about non-AGI software projects (eg. Linux, Doom). If the system is successful enough to really make an impact, I bet you could get a bestseller.

Regarding friendliness, it's a hard problem that you're probably not going to solve on your own. Nor is any large commercial firm likely to solve it own their own; in fact they'll probably ignore the whole problem and just pursue quarterly profits. So it's best to get it out in the open, so people can work on making it friendly while the hardware is still weak enough to limit the AGI's capabilities.

This would probably be the ideal situation from a human survival point of view. If someone were to figure out AGI after the hardware is more powerful than the human brain, we'd face a hard takeoff scenario with one unstoppable AGI that's not necessarily friendly. Having the software in a lot of hands while we're still waiting for Moore's Law to catch up to the brain, we have a much more gradual approach, we can work together on getting there safely, and when AGI does get smarter than us there will be lots of them with lots of different motivations. None of them will be able to turn us all into paperclips, because doing that would interfere with the others and they won't allow it.

A lot of my professors put their video lectures on youtube now so those are a lot of great videos to watch, but I'm not sure on the rules of whether or not I'm supposed to share them so I can only link the ones that have public Youtube channels.

For Electronics (BJTs, MOSFETs, Feedback networks and things like that) you're gonna want to eiter download or buy a copy of this book (https://www.amazon.com/Microelectronic-Circuits-Electrical-Computer-Engineering/dp/0199339139). It's a pretty easy to follow text that is great for learning all the basics of micro electronics. Most universities use is so there are a lot of lectures using that text as reference.

For Digital systems (El E 235), and some useful Engineering matrix math and probability (Engr 310) on this channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf4G95tHQPnphwpfrkzelgA
and https://www.youtube.com/user/OleMissVLSI (EL E 385 for computer architecture and the like)

For basic circuits this channel is good.
https://www.youtube.com/user/RebelsLoveCircuits

Programming is best learned on codeacademy.com unless you want to learn C or something lower level, in which case i'm not too sure where to do that other than a course or reading a book online.

For your basic math and calculus you'll want
https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickJMT (the real mvp)
and Kahn Academy of course.

Then once you've gotten down the Laplace Transforms and understand the Laplace domain and Frequency domains, you can go onto my favourite topic in El E which is control theory. For that you're gonna want:
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=oBc_BHxw78s&list=PLUMWjy5jgHK1NC52DXXrriwihVrYZKqjk.

I'm not really sure what else there is, but If you can think of any specific topic I can try to find the best material I remember using.

Oh sorry, you just ignored the other chain, here you go:

HAHA, this is the head of the organization!!!!!

From his wikipedia:

Genetics Entine is the founding director of the Genetic Literacy Project (GLP), operating as the Science Literacy Project, which is the umbrella organization for the GLP, Genetic Expert News Service (GENeS) and the Epigenetics Literacy Project. GLP focuses on the intersection of media, policy and genetics, both human and agricultural.

Entine has written three books on genetics and two on chemicals. Let Them Eat Precaution: How Politics is Undermining the Genetic Revolution examines the controversy over genetic modification in agriculture.[18]

In 2007, Entine published Abraham's Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People which examined the shared ancestry of Jews, Christians and Muslims, and addressed the question "Who is a Jew?" as seen through the prism of DNA.[19]

Entine's first book, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It was inspired by the documentary on black athletes written with Brokaw in 1989.[20] It was favorably reviewed by The New York Times[21] but criticized by others who claimed that the subject could encourage a racist view of human relations.[22]

Entine supports the production of GMO foods, and has criticized writer Caitlin Shetterly after she wrote an article in Elle Magazine saying that GMO corn had made her ill.[23][24][25]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Entine

PLEASE defend his views on eugenics, please....

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[–]dtiftw [score hidden] 12 minutes ago
I genuinely have no idea what you're trying to say. Or how it's relevant. Or how you think anything in there is about eugenics.

Is there some medication you should be taking that you aren't?

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[–]polkam0n 1 point 7 minutes ago
https://www.amazon.com/Taboo-Athletes-Dominate-Sports-Afraid/dp/158648026X

"In virtually every sport in which they are given opportunity to compete, people of African descent dominate. East Africans own every distance running record. Professional sports in the Americas are dominated by men and women of West African descent. Why have blacks come to dominate sports? Are they somehow physically better? And why are we so uncomfortable when we discuss this? Drawing on the latest scientific research, journalist Jon Entine makes an irrefutable case for black athletic superiority. We learn how scientists have used numerous, bogus "scientific" methods to prove that blacks were either more or less superior physically, and how racist scientists have often equated physical prowess with intellectual deficiency. Entine recalls the long, hard road to integration, both on the field and in society. And he shows why it isn't just being black that matters—it makes a huge difference as to where in Africa your ancestors are from.Equal parts sports, science and examination of why this topic is so sensitive, Taboois a book that will spark national debate."

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/is-individuality-the-savior-of-eugenics/

"Eugenics critics are still the vocal majority, spanning the political spectrum. But in recent years, a growing constituency of Drs. Jekyll within the biomedical community has sought to resurrect eugenics as a practice that, if done correctly, can be beneficent. The key to the new eugenics, they say, is individuality—a word with complex resonances ranging from “individualized medicine” to individualism, a cherished American value. Indeed, the new eugenics is sometimes called “individual” eugenics. A recent article by Jon Entine, of the Center for Genetic Literacy at George Mason University, exemplified this push for eugenicists to come back out of the night. Prenatal genetic diagnosis is eugenics, Entine says—“and that’s okay,” because it is controlled by individuals, not governments. This sparked a lively debate on both his blog and mine. The question then is whether individuality can save the soul of eugenics."

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I wasn't taught it until recently, when I got into philosophy at uni. The way I've learnt it (and the way most tend to) is through studying logic. Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy has a good page on informal logic here.

If you want to learn more about logic itself, I would recommend reading into it with the relevant texbooks, such as Patrick J Hurley's concise introduction to logic or Samuel Guttenplan's The Languages of Logic. I would highly recommend the first, over the second. If you can't buy the books, there's a good series on formal logic here that I've gone through, before.

It can be a hard thing to learn, but it is extremely rewarding. Logic gets you to think with better clarity, deconstruct ideas better and make stronger arguments. Best of luck!

First of all, your personal experience is what people call an anecdote, and it doesn't reflect actual trends over a population, such as the statistic that overall, you are able to buy cheaper, higher quality things now, compared to the past.

Second:

https://www.amazon.com/ZTE-VZW-Z839PP-Vantage-Prepaid-Smartphone/dp/B078SPG6C6/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1550782612&sr=8-7&keywords=cheap+smartphones

34 bucks, you're welcome, get yourself a phone.

So yes, phones are much cheaper now, and they do more than they did in the past. You can thank the free market for that, and thank me for doing the amazon search (created by free market) that you didn't feel like doing yourself.

I don't know your life story, and I don't care, but chances are, you should learn some new useful skill that someone would pay you more for, like everyone should. And if you can't afford a car, call up Ralph Nader and thank him for his trouble. Now cars need things like 6+ airbags to meet government mandates, mandatory seatbelt systems, in addition to mandated fuel economy at the same time, and pages and pages of other regulations. Now it takes a lot more to pay for front/side/back airbag design, material research, seatbelt system design, fuel consumption research to account for extra weight, construction, internal testing, external government testing to make a car and jump through hoops compared to the past. And so the government required cars to be more expensive. Whenever the government gets involved, people aren't as free, and they are not allowed to make things as cheaply as their would-be consumers (you) want.

You claim that the industrial revolution only helped business owners and banks, and not the poor. First you'll have to describe, in detail, how banks "stole" farms. Second, you'll have to explain the doubling of blue-collar real wages between 1810 and 1850. If you tell the average person that they have twice as much real money (not due to inflation), also that goods are much cheaper, and then tell them that they're not better off, they're gonna look at you real funny.

And if that isn't convincing enough for you, look at how people voted with their feet. Millions of people flocked to the new jobs available, leaving everything in their homes behind to take part in the prosperity of the industrial revolution. If those people didn't think they were getting a good deal, they would have sent word bad home, and people would have stopped coming. But they didn't. The evidence is decisively against you. The Luddites still might have your back though.

And finally, congratulations on misrepresenting the point to try and convince no one. No one ever said it's great to be poor. What was stated is that the poor are better off compared to 1970 and before. Even in the last 30 years, more than a billion people have risen out of extreme poverty due to increased free market principles. That's 1,000,000,000+ people. Things are getting better, and they're getting better fast.

Welcome to futurology. No offense intended, but I think it would be in the best interests of you and our community if you would lurk more before posting to this sub, as subreddits exist for a reason and are each separate communities that are best served by people who have an understanding of it.

Now the reason I asked you about technological unemployment is because universal basic income, as it is discussed on this subreddit, is intrinsically tied to the rise in jobs lost due to automation. People here view basic income at least as a stopgap measure to prevent societal upheaval during a time when wealth is becoming increasing concentrated at the top due to automation technology.

If you want to get a better understanding of this issue, I recommend this talk by Brynjolfsson and McAfee (authors of The Second Machine Age, probably the best book on this issue).

Michael Pollan, the author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "The Botany of Desire", recently released a book on psychedelics and their potential to treat addiction and other mental issues.

It's called "How To Change Your Mind"

https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence/dp/1594204225

I cannot recommend this book highly (nyuknyuk) enough. Having tried LSD, psilocybin, and ecstasy, I can say that I really enjoyed most of those experiences. Of course, setting is key. You need to be in a good place, both physically and mentally.

This book is a revelation. Pollan does excellent research, and also documents his own experiences with the drugs that he profiles.

I wept with joy several times as he interviewed people who recounted how their lives were changed for the better after having a guided trip.

It was glorious.

Most recommendations I’ve heard are for 0.2g, up to 0.4g of mushrooms. It could be more but generally, what I’ve seen recommended is that if you can feel it, it’s too much. Dose one day, skip two days. It should make you generally feel like your day is better. Your brain can gain the ability to make new neural connections, among other amazing things. Check out the Paul Stamets interview on Joe Rogan around 46:00 and the fantastic
The Psychadelic Explorers Guide on The Tim Ferris show with Jim Fadiman, they discuss it right away. There’s also books, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594204225/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_ZKL5BbQ7K6JYQ (though Michael Pollan offers little on microdosing)
about this new frontier of psychedelics plus a new micodosing specific documentary.
Then there’s the wide variety of psychadelic research currently happening, leading back to OP.
Edit: formatting

Superintelligence

Good book.

I think of the human mind as a very specific intelligence designed to meet the demands of a natural life. A tailor made intelligence that is ultra specific seems like an incredibly difficult thing to recreate. I wouldn't be surprised if after AGI was created, it proved that our brains are both works of art, and only useful in specific areas.

They say a Philosopher is comparable to a dog standing on it's hind legs and trying to walk. Our brains are not setup to think about big problems and big solutions. Our brains are very specific. So, certainly, we shouldn't be using it as a model to build AGI.

As far as self awareness, I don't think we understand what that is. I think the seed AI's we have are already self-aware. They just have a very basic drive which is entirely reactionary. We input, it outputs.

It's not that if we connect enough dot's it'll suddenly come alive like Pinocchio. More, it will gradually wake up the more complex the overall program becomes.

Sorry. I doubt merely mentioning that I wrote a book could be castigated as "self-promotion", but actually offering a reference or link certainly could be seen that way, and I can never figure out out to navigate reddit's anti-self-promotion quagmire. I just can't figure out what the rules are on that issue, since it is so mod-specific (or mod-dependent).

My understanding is that once someone explicitly asks, I can then offer all the relevant information...as you just did, so here you go! :-)

A Taxonomy and Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0692279849

It's a book I wrote over the spring and summer. The first section just collects and organizes mind-uploading thought experiments. The second section walks through my philosophy of mind (which is essentially a "psychological" model in which identity is tied to memory). The point or main argument of the book is that any minds resulting from an uploading procedure should receive equal primacy in their claim to the original identity.

Thanks for your interest.

Cheers!

Our co-founder Eliezer Yudkowsky invented the entire approach called "Friendly AI," and you can read our original research on our research page. It's interesting to note that in the leading textbook on AI (Russell & Norvig), a discussion of our work on Friendly AI and intelligence explosion scenarios dominates the section on AI safety (in ch. 26), while the entire "mainstream" field of "machine ethics" isn't mentioned at all.

Stuart Russell, the man who literally wrote the book on AI, is concerned.

Plenty of prestigious people on the cutting edge of the research in the field are concerned.

Just because you've only heard the household-name-level famous people talk about it, it doesn't mean that the genuine, in-the-thick-of-it experts aren't concerned either.

As for the 10~20 years figure, you're right that it is unlikely that AI will be made in that timeframe. However, the claim was merely that it is possible to create with enough resources in that timeframe, which I think is reasonable. Since you care about what the experts think, here is a summary of the best information we have about when they think this will happen.

>Median estimates for when there will be a 10% chance of human-level AI are all in the 2020s (from seven surveys).

>Median estimates for when there will be a 50% chance of human-level AI range between 2035 and 2050 (from seven surveys)

___
AI: A Modern Approach is the best textbook on AI by far

Andy Stern was the authors name.

He estimates it would cost between $1.75 trillion and $2.5 trillion to create an income floor of $12,000 per year for all 18-to-64-year-olds and for all seniors receiving less than $1,000 a month in Social Security.

He goes on to list a "menu" of viable funding options, including

• cashing out all or some number of the 126 welfare programs that currently cost $1 trillion a year
  
• raise revenue by eliminating all or some of the federal govt's $1.2 trillion in tax expenditures
  
• levying a value added tax of 5 to 10 percent
  
• implementing a financial transaction tax
  
• charging corporations a fee for using and/or abusing our "common wealth" (similar to Peter Barnes' proposal for raising revenue on the Alaska Permanent Fund)
  
• levying a wealth / net worth tax
  
• looking at other federal budget expenditures (military budget - $600b, oil and gas subsidies ($30b), etc.
  
  I highly recommend the book if you're interested in learning more about UBI
  https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Floor-Universal-Economy-American/dp/1610396251

There are very simple reasons we are not hearing any communication. The signals we are using make just no sense for any advanced civ. em waves are way to slow for interplanetary communication and hertz em waves are not usable with their field propulsion tech they use for transportation.

If you are interested to understand:
long distance communication is done through REAL gravity waves. Not vaccum pressure waves as detected by LIGO. Gregory Hodowanec built and used such a sensor.

point2point communication is best done with closed loop lw waves as created by a smith coil. It should be noted that many parameters need to fit in such an antenna to work and you need perfect alignment of the antennas. But you get no energy loss with distance, high wave stability and good matter penetration in return.

If you understan Dr. Stoyan Sargs BSM model, you will understand halve their tech quite fast.

I don't know who is doing PR for this book but they are amazing. It's not a good book.

My review on Amazon:

> The most interesting thing about this book is how Bostrom managed to write so much while saying so little. Seriously, there is very little depth. He presents an idea out of nowhere, says a little about it, and then says [more research needs to be done]. He does this throughout the entire book. I give it two stars because, while extremely diluted, he does present an interesting idea every now and then.

Read this or this or this instead.

This is SO important. We should be doing this faster than China.

A branch of artificial intelligence is that of breeding and gene editing. Selectively selecting for genetic intelligence could lead to rapid advances in human intelligence. In 'Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies', the most recent book by Oxford professor Nick Bostrum, as well as his paper 'Embryo Selection for Cognitive Enhancement', the case is made for very simple advances in IQ by selecting certain embryos for genetic attributes or even, in this case, breeding for them, and the payoff in terms of raw intelligence could be staggering.

The premise of AI safety is roughly "we're dominating the planet because we're smarter than our surroundings" + "AI capable of self-improvement can get a lot smarter really fast" + "it's surprisingly hard to tell an AI what to do in a way that does not transparently result in it wiping out everything we value once it has crushingly superior intelligence." The long form of the argument can be read in Bostrom's book on the topic.

If you mean strong AI, there are many pathways for how we could get there. 15 years is probably a bit shorter than most expert estimates for mind scanning or evolution based AI. This book, which discusses different methods, will be available in the states soon:
http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0199678111/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406007274&sr=8-1&keywords=superintelligence

> We went from the horse and buggy to landing on the moon in 80 years

Past events are not necessarily good indicators of future events. In this case, faster computers are a mechanism for bringing about AI faster. How much faster we get in how much time will probably be the influencing factor in all this. There is quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding whether that will be post-silicon or not. We don't have post-silicon computing up and running yet.

The other factor may be incentive. Maybe specific purpose AI will meet all such demand for the next 20 years, and nobody will have any incentive to create strong AI. This is especially true given the risks of creating strong AI (both to the world and to the organization or individual who creates the AI).

A couple books that come to mind that do this are 2312 By Kim Stanley Robinson. And to a lesser degree Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. 2312 is kinda boring since Robinson does world building at the expense of story line and character development ... but it is IMO one of the most robust and coherent pictures of the future I've ever read in SciFi. Vinge's book is more balanced and thus entertaining. Both of them are mostly hard science books, that is they don't break the laws of physics per se. Great reads.

I suggest taking a read up on Nick Bostrom - Superintelligence the whole book is interesting (but dry as drywall), but mostly the first few chapter apply here. The technological advances and problems towards getting to singularity he paints are very well structured and well reasoned. A lot of the things I see in this chart for that reason feel unlikely or unrealistic. (Kurtzweil might know his stuff super well though), but there are things like:Mind machine interface or mind uploading that have some disturbingly complex issues when you start delving into the practical details, making them an unviable path / inefficient path towards singularity, or atleast an “AI complete” problem if just being a parallel technology. While that doesn’t disprove the whole chart, I feel that this chart paints a very vague and broad timeline that tries to capture all current “wouldn’t this be awesome?” Techs and place them in a “believable” timeline. All in all, he might be correct, but the more stuff you state and ‘kiiind of hit the target for’ (feel free to insert Texas sharpshooter fallacy here) doesn’t make all your future predictions true. Taking this with a major grain of salt.

I found this book great for a solution that could replace our current economic and political systems:

http://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Everything-Manifesto-Transparency-Truth/dp/1583944435/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406124471&sr=1-1&keywords=steele+open+source

This book is great as well. It is, Ray Kurzweil, explaining how the human brainn function as he attempts to reverse engineer it for Google in order to create an AI.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought-Revealed/dp/0143124048/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406124597&sr=1-1&keywords=kurzweil

While all his books are great. He talks a lot about exponential growth in "The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence" and "The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology"

His most recent book, "How to Create a Mind" is also a must read.

the movie "Her" was a good example in a lot of ways, the book 2312 has a lot of awesome possibilities in it as well.

I agree macroeconomic prediction has a poor track record. I believe this is because it generally tries to extrapolate from past trends, rather than looking at the first principles causality - e.g. macroeconomics through extrapolation could not have predicted the impact of the internet, but looking at the underlying capability of the technology could (and did).

I think we're already seeing service sector jobs being obsoleted. See http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Machine-Age-Technologies/dp/0393239357 for examples and data backing this up.

Job sectors relying primarily on perception will be the first and hardest hit, since perception is what computers are most rapidly improving at thanks to deep learning.

Few will read this but I highly recommend reading 8 steps to colonize the Galaxy.

The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316771635/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ZWAPBbT92H2SG

Based on vague hints from a trusted person with clearance at DARPA they already are and have been for quite some time. But aside from the wild speculation, what really hammered home the staggering gravity of the situation for me was this superb book by Nick Bostrom. If you're at all interested in this sort of thing I'd highly recommend it.

I've read a few. My interest is AI. Of them all I'll recommend two:

• Consciousness and the Brain
  
• On Intelligence
  
  
  edit - sigh I am now unable to reply to people who have replied to me. Would love to talk about neuroscience and consciousness and Ai but I guess well meet on another sub

I don't quite buy the "I work in A.I so I have a special perspective" idea. People couldn't fathom what the internet would be in the early 1990's and they were I.T professionals. I understand there is a huge variety of A.I research but I think the worry is with the kind of A.I that learns to enhance itself in a general sense faster than we can. Forget purpose built focused A.I and think more "general" intelligence. Very hard to implement but in principal it's possible. It need not be sentient... that is basically irrelevant... it's the intelligence explosion and who controls it that matters.

Maybe read this: https://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/1501227742

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee.

2007 Q1 - $400 1TB HDD (7K1000)

2014 Q1 - $150 4TB HDD (Seagate)

Price per GB:

.40 cents per GB to .0375 cents per GB, in 7 years.

7 years, or 84 months resulted in a 10.66fold decrease in cost per GB.

Moore's law actually holds pretty true between the time period of 2007 and 2014.

This does nothing to address the difficulty of the control issue. He's basically just saying we'll figure it out before we get AI, don't worry about it.

SuperIntelligence actually spells out why control is so hard. None of those points are touched even generally. He's Director of Engineer at Google, which actually created an AI ethics board because an AI company they bought was afraid that the tech could lead to the end of the human species, yet none of that is even briefly mentioned.

There is very good reason to be cautious around developing an intellect that can match ours, never mind rapidly exceed it. I don't see the necessity for repeated calls to let our guard down.

False. You are demonstrating that you are not familiar with the field. There are many possible approaches to programming an AI. One example is full scale brain emulation, in which we begin by modelling the entirety of a human brain down to each and every last neuron. Given sufficient computing power (probably this demands a quantum computer) it is possible to run this brain simulation under different test conditions, allowing it to evolve with different values. This is only one possible method. If you want to read about some of the alternatives, I highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/1501227742

You clearly thought a lot about this. Now you may benefit treating yourself to Nick Bostrom's book Superintelligence. It might blow your mind by opening up wholly new territory for you on this discussion.

The Second Machine Age is a book.

Google Scholar search for articles related to The Second Machine Age.

Will Humans Go The Way of Horses, an article by McAfee and Brynjolfsson, and related articles on Google Scholar.

Here's an article/collection on AEI.

Google Scholar search for basic income has lot's of great articles.

Well I'm not sure that's entirely true:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought-Revealed/dp/0143124048/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

At the very least, he's trying to understand the brain.

He is amazingly articulate on this subject, probably more so than anyone. I really enjoyed his book Superintelligence.

Keith I have just read deeper and seen that you have published a book on this subject https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0692279849/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I have just ordered a copy of it I will read it as soon as it arrives to gain a deeper understanding of your position.
Steve

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: Seagate


|Country|Link|
|:-----------|:------------|
|UK|amazon.co.uk|
|Spain|amazon.es|
|France|amazon.fr|
|Germany|amazon.de|
|Japan|amazon.co.jp|
|Canada|amazon.ca|
|Italy|amazon.it|
|China|amazon.cn|




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History isn't a gradual incline though. There's this book I'm reading called The Second Machine Age, really good read by the way, which has this graph in its early pages. Now I don't know how they source that information and am not claiming it to be fully accurate, but as an illustrative example it shows that total societal upheaval is a pretty rapid thing that compounds earlier periods of change. What we think of as tremendous periods critical to social development were, in this era which is the only one you can really form comparisons in as the dissemination of information is so radically different from what it was prior to the industrial age, as short in duration as the span between Pokemon Red and Pokemon Black.

Two decades is a lot when your society is literate and informed.

The Second Machine Age, by McAfee and Brynjolfsson.

The Zero Marginal Cost Society by Rifkin.

Ending Aging by De Grey.

Although I would personally argue that you get a good understanding of their material from the numerous talks they give, and learning the background science is probably more important for assessing their claims than simply reading their books.

This picture is from the book The Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage. Some of the calculations are wrong, but it is an interesting read. But you don't have to take my word for it.

The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, is a popular approach to the topic but they are both academics and their research is quite sound.

If you actually want to know the answer, why ask loaded questions about instead of researching it? Say read a book : http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0199678111/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422360580&sr=8-1&keywords=superintelligence

>Given what Musk does with other technologies, he is by no means a luddite or a technophobe. He's seen something that's disturbing. Given the guys track record, it's probably worth investigating

I agree. There's also a point to be made that one of the recent books Musk mentioned he read in a few interviews (and was acknowledged by the author in, too) was this http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0199678111

I started reading it a few nights ago. It's painting an interesting picture about the future of AI. I'm looking forward to finishing it to discuss further

funny that you mention the MIT.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Machine-Age-Technologies/dp/0393239357

Both guys are from the MIT and all my arguments are from this Book.
You should read it.

Read this book and get back to me.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Machine-Age-Technologies/dp/1480577472

The Second Machine Age

I just finished 2312 which paints a pretty interesting projection of the next three centuries.

You should read the book, but the portion somewhat relevant to this discussion posits that capitalism is pushed to the fringes of luxury and niche goods and services, because all receive basic necessities of food, housing, and clothing. Unfortunately, as humanity settles the rest of the solar system, earth gets culturally left behind, too entrenched in nationalism and classism of its history.

That's not a "hyperloop." It's called a Mass Driver, and it is a trope of sci-fi for decades and also is extensively discussed in the Millennial Project by Marshall Savage.

If you think you are depressed by the Trump administration now, read this book and leave yourself feeling like you want to eat a shotgun blast over the things we should be doing and aren't.

The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps

IMHO nobody should call themselves a futurist until they have read this book.

There are huge swaths of the AI community that think this could be a real issue. A recent book goes on about how this could be an issue and what we maybe able to do about it.

All technology has dangers contain within it but AI is one of the most credible that could take us out as a species beyond our control.

There is no coexistence with a paperclip maximizer:

https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer

See also here:
https://www.amazon.de/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0199678111

If he were trying to understand the brain, instead of explaining it in a way that matches his assumptions - he would stand the shoulders of neuroscientists who are writing on the topic. But I get it, e.g., it's difficult to describe the brain as a computer when in a brain processing and storage are the same thing.

> http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought-Revealed/dp/0143124048/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Just gonna drop this gem here. http://www.amazon.com/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/1501227742

Doesn't have to be skynet level smart to fuck shit up. Also once its self modifying it's a whole other ballgame.