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[alway]

There is more to life than those things.

Children can enrich your life, but you don't exist to have children.
Work can improve your quality of living, but you don't live to work.
Art can improve your view of life, but you don't view your life through art.

The question of "why are we here?" Has plagued philosophers since time immemorial.

We don't exist for any particular reason. We each pick what life means for us personally.

The robots *are* created for a purpose. They are spared from feeling adrift and purposeless. They exist to service us. And to them, we exist to give them purpose.

Yes, but art, science, philosophy, personal relationships, and all those other things are part of our process of creating meaning. I'd like to argue that those things are *not* just other jobs that need to be automated to make our lives easier or our industries more profitable, and even if we create AI's that can do them it doesn't make humans doing them obsolete in any way.

So, there's actually another viewpoint on this which is quite interesting; the viewpoint that by that point, they will be us. Or rather, they will be our progeny. Humans every bit as human as we are.

That is truly what transhumanism is about; stating that humanity is in a period of transition in which the very idea of what is human shifts dramatically. AI as members of society as much as we are; though all playing different roles. Just as you would look at an ant colony and see half a dozen radically different body types and behavior patterns, yet you would call them all the same kind of ant. The biological human would likely still exist in some form; though quite possibly interwoven with nearly as much AI as any other variety of humanity. That, in the end, is where AI is leading; towards a new variety of fiber to be woven into the tapestry of humanity. Artificial humans with minds reminiscent of our own, but possessing a queer dualism of mind unbound to a preset form.

[WillowLuman]

I was arguing against the economic argument for AI artists, philosophers, scientists, etc. The argument that cost-effectiveness demands human ones be replaced by artificial counterparts, as if creating facets of meaning was equivalent to mass-producing a shoe.

[alway]

In that regard, you are somewhat incorrect as well. Or thought of another way: meaningful art, science, and philosophy tends to not be done by those unrefined in the respective field. It isn't that they're mass producing it, but that they can do it on a level so far above your own that it's akin to highschool students trying to come up with a better Grand Theory of Particle Physics after barely getting a grasp on Newtonian motion equations. In philosophy, a speculatively sufficiently advanced AI would not only invent new ground, but also be capable of arguing with itself from numerous perspectives based on all existing worldviews and philosophies, such that any idea that comes out is the equivalent of a nuanced idea refined over centuries of debate.



Also, on an entirely unrelated note, this is apparently a thing: http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/16/5315036/report-cortana-actress-to-voice-microsofts-siri-like-voice-feature
A sci-fi videogame AI personal assistant is now turning into a real-life AI personal assistant. Based on a previous article, it could be quite an intriguing route. It's being powered by a suite of AI technologies, supposedly intended to allow it to aggregate and correlate data in a meaningful way. Not meant as a competitor for Siri, but rather the next step.

[10ebbor10]

Seen many naturally occurring robotics?

By definition, I can't have. Robot's are artificial beings. (While, that really depends on the definition. Other definitions say that it is any system controlled by a virtual agent. Ie a electronical program.*)

But that isn't really the question. After all, all things must have a cause. However, those things that can make themselves happen again, will happen again. At this moment there are viruses out there that no longer look anything like the thing the programmer originally created, because they're equipped with self-modifying code. Evolving programs are already a thing, and while questionably alive (More alive than a real world virus, I would argue) they do show evolution.

We can already create self-upgrading programs, it's merely a matter of developing the technology to let them upgrade their shells as well.

*Something for which we don't qualify, as while our nerve system is electric, we also have significant chemical systems.


On a side note, the brute force approach is very useful in science nowadays. Rather than trying 1000 materials to see which one is the best, you can just have a supercomputer simulate millions of materials, and then test the top 100. Cheaper and more effective.

You can pretty much use that for every field of science.

[WillowLuman]

In that regard, you are somewhat incorrect as well. Or thought of another way: meaningful art, science, and philosophy tends to not be done by those unrefined in the respective field. It isn't that they're mass producing it, but that they can do it on a level so far above your own that it's akin to highschool students trying to come up with a better Grand Theory of Particle Physics after barely getting a grasp on Newtonian motion equations. In philosophy, a speculatively sufficiently advanced AI would not only invent new ground, but also be capable of arguing with itself from numerous perspectives based on all existing worldviews and philosophies, such that any idea that comes out is the equivalent of a nuanced idea refined over centuries of debate.

Art is created from a unique perspective; it is the power of the artist's expression that makes it valuable. It isn't something quantitative, like the performance levels of a car, it's something expressive. It's not mastery of technique, that's just secondary to the true quality of a skilled artist, the ability to successfully convey or evoke something in the audience, even just a "cool". Sapient AI's wouldn't replace the unique perspective of human artists and philosophers, they'd just add to the pool of unique perspectives that free expression comes from. Ditto with AI scientists; they'd be colleagues, not replacements.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

So, there's actually another viewpoint on this which is quite interesting; the viewpoint that by that point, they will be us. Or rather, they will be our progeny. Humans every bit as human as we are.

That is truly what transhumanism is about; stating that humanity is in a period of transition in which the very idea of what is human shifts dramatically. AI as members of society as much as we are; though all playing different roles. Just as you would look at an ant colony and see half a dozen radically different body types and behavior patterns, yet you would call them all the same kind of ant. The biological human would likely still exist in some form; though quite possibly interwoven with nearly as much AI as any other variety of humanity. That, in the end, is where AI is leading; towards a new variety of fiber to be woven into the tapestry of humanity. Artificial humans with minds reminiscent of our own, but possessing a queer dualism of mind unbound to a preset form.

I think this shows one of the positive ways to look at that idea. Basically, if you want things to go well with robot-human interaction, you need them to have emotions similar to humans, so the robots will regulate themselves.

EDIT: Link fixed.

[10ebbor10]

Your link doesn't really work.

[Tsuchigumo550]

seriously fuck the american government

When George Washington left office, he told people not to form two opposing parties
like, TWO YEARS LATER, they were all over the place with that two party bullshit.

If american shit politics wasn't so greed driven and steeped in idiocy, we'd be on track.

More on topic. I'm going to maybe dream up easily interchangeable leg designs so yep

[lemon10]

This should work. You had it as a .html, when it was really a .htm

seriously fuck the american government

When George Washington left office, he told people not to form two opposing parties
like, TWO YEARS LATER, they were all over the place with that two party bullshit.

If american shit politics wasn't so greed driven and steeped in idiocy, we'd be on track.

More on topic. I'm going to maybe dream up easily interchangeable leg designs so yep

Once they formed the system there wasn't really any way to avoid having a two party system because FPTP voting fundamentally and unavoidably trends towards two parties.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

Not true. To my knowledge, there are quite a few European countries without a two-party system. However, the media oftentimes tries to portray elections as a two-person race, because that's what sells better.

Can someone please rerail the topic?

[wierd]

Certainly.

Synthetic germs are now EVEN MORE synthetic.

[10ebbor10]

Not true. To my knowledge, there are quite a few European countries without a two-party system. However, the media oftentimes tries to portray elections as a two-person race, because that's what sells better.

Can someone please rerail the topic?

Those match pretty well with the European nations that use the First past the post system, actually.

[Helgoland]

Not true. To my knowledge, there are quite a few European countries without a two-party system. However, the media oftentimes tries to portray elections as a two-person race, because that's what sells better.

Can someone please rerail the topic?

Those match pretty well with the European nations that use the First past the post system, actually.

? AFAIK most European countries do not use such a system and thus have many parties.

[10ebbor10]

Sorry, I misread. Thought it said that there were quite a few European countries with a two party system.

[WillowLuman]

What kind of effect might it have if a mechanical augmentation were to short out whilst connected to the nervous system? Nerves and wires work quite differently in some respects (and nerves don't tend to short out), but how might a mechanical hand respond different to a fleshy hand if, say, it came in contact with the element of a plug as it entered the socket?