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[Droggarth]

What is there to gain from human-like machines, really and realistically, beyond sating a lust for creation?

Wait what.. is the conversation going on about humanoid mechanical machines? Let me give ye my opinion on the subject which is near to my heart.

As far as I'm concerned I would love it if I could have the chance to transfer my mind over into a machine body like in the movie 'Chappie' and be a living machine. Seriously, I've had all my life now consisting of biological problems and dysfunction regarding chemical imbalance and other DNA crappiness and I'd love to get rid of it all as I wouldn't have to sleep anymore, nor eat or do anything of the biological chore sort. I could just sit for hours on end and probably solve a math equation and invent something, the possibilities.. just extraordinary!

I've given thought to living forever for the past 8+ years now. I could do so much more in a body not limited by mortality and inferior physical brain function. I have no need for creating family or spend time with a woman, well the latter one is still debatable for me (due to being in a crappy biological male body) but the point is I would rather think and do things I love doing as an individual and achieve something far greater IMO.

I've loved the idea of being a machine since I saw movies like 'Robocop' and 'Terminator'.

[IcyTea31]

Wait what.. is the conversation going on about humanoid mechanical machines?

It was originally about the synths in Fallout 4 and their rights, but then it expanded to AIs in general and branched to brain uploading.

Seriously, I've had all my life now consisting of biological problems and dysfunction regarding chemical imbalance and other DNA crappiness and I'd love to get rid of it all

If you read my previous posts on this topic, you'll see I disagree with your transhumanism. While many of those biological problems are indeed problems, they have great effects on our psyches and personalities. You could possibly be better without them than you are now, but would you still be 'you'?

[itisnotlogical]

I would probably not be me, because I would spring for the minigun attachment.

How much would mankind, animals, and the environment benefit if we didn't need to mass-produce food? How much more work could be done in one life time if we didn't need to sleep, didn't go senile, could infinitely expand our capacity (physical space allowing)? There would be no more obesity or shortage of anything ever.

Of course, I have a pretty big caveat, in that when your body is a machine, your entire physical existence could become obsolete; old junk; unsupported. The relatively unchanging nature of a human body is a pretty miraculous thing, even if we fuck up and mutate and get sick and die of disease. By comparison, computers can get entirely rebuilt over the course of their lifetime, until the case is the only original part. Imagine if you had to do that for your body when your boss wants you to get the new, augmented arm that allows you to do your job 200% faster, and that arm costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Droggarth]

Seriously, I've had all my life now consisting of biological problems and dysfunction regarding chemical imbalance and other DNA crappiness and I'd love to get rid of it all

If you read my previous posts on this topic, you'll see I disagree with your transhumanism. While many of those biological problems are indeed problems, they have great effects on our psyches and personalities. You could possibly be better without them than you are now, but would you still be 'you'?

That's exactly why I'm torn between being a machine or being a superhuman/superhumanoid with Wolverine's natural rapid regeneration ability.

[Avis-Mergulus]

If you read my previous posts on this topic, you'll see I disagree with your transhumanism. While many of those biological problems are indeed problems, they have great effects on our psyches and personalities. You could possibly be better without them than you are now, but would you still be 'you'?

This is a little disingenuous, isn't it? Suppose you were born without arms. Now, not having any arms might teach you a lot about compassion and the value of being kind to other people and whatever, but would you pass up a chance to have some arms? Probably not. And would gaining them somehow devalue the lessons you learned while they were gone? That seems unlikely.

The argument about not still being you assumes that a) the present you is connected to the past you by something except simple continuity and b) being 'you' is inherently valuable in and of itself. It's like, not having inborn diseases might make me less 'me'. But then, do I want to be me? The same applies to any remotely significant negative thing in your life, not just health.

I don't know if I fucked up or if amazing things happened.

Perhaps you fucked up amazingly?

E: Quote was broke, done fixed.

[Shadowlord]

If we can just get past the "hardware inevitably fails in 5-10 years" problem (and all the other problems, like "how do I connect brain"), having a cyberbrain in a synthetic body like in Ghost in the Shell would be a fantastic improvement.

[i2amroy]

My WTF for the day is people submitting programming assignments for grading where their project report acts as if the assignment works just fine when it doesn't even come close to compiling.

Imagine somebody is building you a car. They hand you a car that is missing a third of its engine, the back right wheel, the speedometer and the brake pedal, half of the front windshield, the back of the driver's seat, and the radio. They then hand you a note about how, though the car has a slight shimmy when taking left turns over 40 mph, putting it together wasn't that difficult and Wikipedia was really helpful for wiring up the turn indicators. THE CAR WILL NOT START; AND IF YOU DID TRY TO START IT IT WOULD EXPLODE AND KILL THE DRIVER IN AT LEAST 3 DIFFERENT WAYS!

...So this is what I've been dealing with today.

[Droggarth]

If we can just get past the "hardware inevitably fails in 5-10 years" problem (and all the other problems, like "how do I connect brain"), having a cyberbrain in a synthetic body like in Ghost in the Shell would be a fantastic improvement.

Aye!

[TheBiggerFish]

My WTF for the day is people submitting programming assignments for grading where their project report acts as if the assignment works just fine when it doesn't even come close to compiling.

Imagine somebody is building you a car. They hand you a car that is missing a third of its engine, the back right wheel, the speedometer and the brake pedal, half of the front windshield, the back of the driver's seat, and the radio. They then hand you a note about how, though the car has a slight shimmy when taking left turns over 40 mph, putting it together wasn't that difficult and Wikipedia was really helpful for wiring up the turn indicators. THE CAR WILL NOT START; AND IF YOU DID TRY TO START IT IT WOULD EXPLODE AND KILL THE DRIVER IN AT LEAST 3 DIFFERENT WAYS!

...So this is what I've been dealing with today.

Ouch.

Just, ouch.

[EnigmaticHat]

My WTF for the day is people submitting programming assignments for grading where their project report acts as if the assignment works just fine when it doesn't even come close to compiling.

Imagine somebody is building you a car. They hand you a car that is missing a third of its engine, the back right wheel, the speedometer and the brake pedal, half of the front windshield, the back of the driver's seat, and the radio. They then hand you a note about how, though the car has a slight shimmy when taking left turns over 40 mph, putting it together wasn't that difficult and Wikipedia was really helpful for wiring up the turn indicators. THE CAR WILL NOT START; AND IF YOU DID TRY TO START IT IT WOULD EXPLODE AND KILL THE DRIVER IN AT LEAST 3 DIFFERENT WAYS!

...So this is what I've been dealing with today.

Is there a possibility that it worked on their computer?  Or are they trying to cheat?

[i2amroy]

For most people who it worked on their computer you can tell, because they actively admit that they still have some problems left (or discreetly try to skirt their way around mentioning the issues). Since there's also a significant overlap between people who didn't bother to run their code through the rather nice testing suite that we made and those pretending that everything is fine, my honest guess is that a lot of people still don't understand that you can't just write computer code off the cuff before turning it in and expecting everything to work properly for an A; there's a reason we have a testing suite, and they are expected to use it. (This is a pretty low level computer science class, if you haven't guessed already.)

(Alternatively they've taken the idea of "oh the grader probably just glances over the code before grading it" to heart for some odd reason, which is exactly why we spent the last few years making such a nice batch of tests for all the projects ).

[TheBiggerFish]

@i2amroy:Is this like "print "Hello World!"" territory?

[i2amroy]

@i2amroy:Is this like "print "Hello World!"" territory?

Not quite, it's a basic data structures class, so stuff like how objects and generics really work, building stacks/queues, manipulating arrays, basic tree structures; that sort of stuff. It's an early 200 level course in college, so they've already been exposed to about a year of "the fun of programming" (cue rainbow) and now it's our job to actually get them thinking about the theory and the ideas of programming rather than just randomly typing things in and hacking around them until stuff sorta-works.

[TheBiggerFish]

So, beyond my knowledge slightly, then.

Although I tend to go for 'works' than 'sorta-works'.  And bingeread documentation.

[Amperzand]

Those are some wonderful students you have there, friend.