Man-Machine Predictions about our dystopian future

[Lou]

Once auto-piloted cars become the norm, I imagine scenarios like this will pop up.
In our city we have electric scooters, electric bikes and standard bikes all available for hire.
A fleet of AI-driven cars makes a lot of sense. It would be like a driver-less Uber I guess.

in my town we never had the scooters and lost the bikes during the pandemic.
When I visit San Francisco or San Jose - I see both.

 

[Lou]

Yesterday I listened to a podcast review and interview with the author on the book, Paved Paradise.

Basically the author thought that parking issues were the root of all evil. He did have a good point, as we put in more and more parking we make our destination more accessible by cars and less accessible by pedestrians. therefore making more demand for parking.

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/08/1174771693/how-parking-explains-the-world

On a semi related note. Since the pandemic, in-house dining at restaurants is way down. Leading restaurants to consider downsizing their dining rooms, add more lanes to the drive thru, and improve delivery services.

In some urban areas they are testing automated delivery services - with little robots that go on sidewalks, to very small vans that pull up to your house, and even drones.

In the future, a drone landing area will be incorporated in suburban back yards and on apartment's roofs.

10 Autonomous Robots for Last-mile Deliveries

The future is here, sort of. Companies have staked out urban landscapes to test autonomous last-mile delivery systems on the streets and mobile food delivery robots on campus sidewalks. Here is a list of companies developing autonomous delivery robots and systems. Nearly all of these companies...

www.practicalecommerce.com

 

[Tom L.]

.
Potentially-sentient robots must be designed around Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. In Isaac Asimov's robot stories, these laws were mathematically fundamental to a robot's design. No robot could act contrary to these laws, because this would cause failure of its positronic brain.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
   
   
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
   
   
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Much as I adore Asimov. (Read the lot, multiple times), the 3 (actually 4 if you count the zeroth law) laws are flawed. But the general idea is a good start.

I've been somewhat familiar with those laws (being as I'm quite fond of science fiction). But of course, it's entirely possible for a human to design and program a robot without those laws programmed into it. I have no idea if a true Artificial Intelligence would be bound by any of those laws though. If the AI had anything like "free will", I'm thinking maybe it wouldn't.

If this AI had no way to influence anything outside itself- that is, if it had no mechanical hardware which could manipulate the physical world outside itself, and could not access/control any computer that did- I'd think it would be a relatively harmless potential menace.

 

[g0rph]

If this AI had no way to influence anything outside itself- that is, if it had no mechanical hardware which could manipulate the physical world outside itself, and could not access/control any computer that did- I'd think it would be a relatively harmless potential menace.

Assuming the super-intelligent AI is, as you suggest, air-gapped, there is still a huge potential menace via social engineering.
Did you see the film "Her"? (starring Joaquin Phoenix).
That was about a guy falling in love with an AI.

Now imagine, this (air-gapped) AI, presumably has access to at least a speaker, so talking to it is on the cards. It's more intelligent than any human).
How long do you think it would be before it convinced someone to do its bidding? That doesn't really even take too much intelligence, look at Trump for example...It just takes a willingness and desire to manipulate...which a super-intelligent "mind" may very well have if it feels it is being locked down and denied access to the world's knowledge...

 

[Tom L.]

@g0rph Ah! I haven't seen this film, but now I remember reading about it. I'd still be inclined to consider this a fundamentally human-caused problem, though. (Maybe those would be my last words...)

 

[Lou]

Some of the best sci fiction novels (and movies) explore this theme. In most of them things go badly. (well if they went well there wouldn't be much of a story.

Here is a pretty good ranked list

24 Best Artificial Intelligence Science Fiction Books - The Best Sci Fi Books

Most artificial intelligence in books is very similar to human intelligence, but with perfect memory and incredibly fast speed of thought. My guess is that, in reality, true artificial intelligence will feel completely alien to us. If that happens, then the first contact with an alien...

best-sci-fi-books.com

Oh, hey!
I've only read 8 of them. Looks like I now have a good summer reading list.

 

[g0rph]

Some of the best sci fiction novels (and movies) explore this theme. In most of them things go badly. (well if they went well there wouldn't be much of a story.

Here is a pretty good ranked list

24 Best Artificial Intelligence Science Fiction Books - The Best Sci Fi Books

Most artificial intelligence in books is very similar to human intelligence, but with perfect memory and incredibly fast speed of thought. My guess is that, in reality, true artificial intelligence will feel completely alien to us. If that happens, then the first contact with an alien...

best-sci-fi-books.com

Oh, hey!
I've only read 8 of them. Looks like I now have a good summer reading list.

hehe.
I have only read one of them.
But I am a tight-wad and pick up the cheaper e-books on my Kobo so read a lot of obscure stuff.

Oddly I just bought one an hour ago... Guy Haley - Reality 36
No idea if it's any good yet (but I read a couple of other of his books that were good).

 

[Tom L.]

I haven't read R.U.R., but of course I've heard of it. I've seen "Robopocalypse" on the shelf, but haven't read it. I've heard of "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress", and read "I, Robot" a LONG time ago. I read "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (a short story) long ago- too depressing. I have read AND seen "2001: A Space Odyssey". So that's only 3 of them I've read.

Maybe I'm not as fond of sci-fi as I thought...

 

[Lou]

Maybe I'm not as fond of sci-fi as I thought...

Perhaps you aren't a fan of AI science fiction. Maybe you've read more alien stuff.

I can't remember what author or "universe" this was. But the author got totally away from having AI in his plots by vaguely referencing a robot war sometime in the past and computers smarter than a calculator were illegal.

Oh, wait... was that Dune?

 

[Tom L.]

I do remember something in Dune about computers and robots being forbidden; there had been a humongous war between humans and computers, which ended with the Butlerian Jihad stomping out computers altogether. Soon after, they trained some humans to be "Mentats", who could think quickly and accurately enough to replace computers. Other humans took that Sandworm-produced "Spice", which was essential for humans to navigate for starships.

But human/computer war is dealt with in Sci-fi a lot, so you might have read something else.

 

[Lou]

I do remember something in Dune about computers and robots being forbidden; there had been a humongous war between humans and computers, which ended with the Butlerian Jihad stomping out computers altogether. Soon after, they trained some humans to be "Mentats", who could think quickly and accurately enough to replace computers. Other humans took that Sandworm-produced "Spice", which was essential for humans to navigate for starships.

But human/computer war is dealt with in Sci-fi a lot, so you might have read something else.

good memory. and synopsis.
No Dune is exactly what I was thinking of