And using Siri as a demonstration of AI is stupid. :)

Siri is voice recognition + standardized queries. I'm in Seattle and I say "whether" to Siri. The reply is the current weather report.

So, of course people aren't going to trust AI yet. Because AI isn't here yet.

And if they would stop and THINK for a moment they'd understand WHY.

The person willing to sell the weapon IN VIOLATION OF MANY FEDERAL LAWS (in the USofA) understands that he will ... probably ... be selling to someone LESS inclined to break those laws.

So WHY would the seller be inclined to take that risk for $800? Does he plan to make enough profit in volume? Repeat customers? Or does he just like the idea of spending time in prison?

This reads like "journalists" who spend too much time watching TV and movies.

Pretty much.

Unless the attack can be summarized as "used a previously unknown 0-day exploit" then what they're really saying is "got past our defenses".

"Sophisticated" merely means "knows more than than our person responsible for defenses".

And I'm sure that many of you have seen some rather ... unintelligent ... security decisions made.

Sure, but it is unlikely we will ever make contact with life outside our own galaxy.

It is also unlikely that we'll ever make contact with another intelligence in our own galaxy. It is 100,000 light years across.

Then comes the issues of whether:
1. They'd have died out before they could reach us.
2. We die out before they've gotten past the "bang the rocks together" stage.

So many things have to happen in just the right order at just the right time. Look at our evolution for an example (the only one we have).

But the UNIVERSE is huge. With billions of galaxies. And each galaxy has billions of star systems.

The question isn't whether we are the only planet where life evolved.

The question is whether any other life will ever be able to contact us.

The universe could have a million planets with intelligent life. And not one of them within a million light years of another.

I guess the question now is whether Trump will be willing to tone down the rhetoric, make some comprehensive, real-world arguments on important stuff like foreign policy, and basically be more presidential.

Or go the opposite route.

Imagine their first debate. Clinton makes a statement. Trump's rebuttal is that he pulls some pages out of his pocket and starts reading, what he claims, is one of her speeches to Wall Street.

It wouldn't even matter if it was real or something his people found on the Internet. Although he could spend enough to get a copy of a real speech from her.

The news would be 100% about that for the next week. And for the week leading into their second debate.

Trump understands that the "coverage" from the media is not about the real issues. It's about bigger and better circuses.

The voters (99.99% of them) couldn't name 3 cities in Syria or Libya without a map. They have no idea what political leaders are in which countries and what those leaders' issues are.

Yeah. Not much of a "warning". More of an "advertisement".

We need plumbers TODAY because the places we have plumbing were not designed to be serviced by robots.

In your peanut butter example, I'm sure they didn't just replace each human worker with a robot doing an identical task.

They probably re-built the facility so that the machines could handle the job in a way best suited to the machines.

The real issue won't be the magical A.I.s taking all our jobs. It will be when the INFRASTRUCTURE starts to be re-built so that machines can service it.

I agree. Machines are good at tasks which have repeatable actions in a defined space.

Your plumber still needs to know a LOT about plumbing (or you end up with a lot of water leaking). But machines are not good at working in the varied spaces that existing plumbing exists in.

In order for a machine to replace a plumber, the machine would have to be able to learn the work area, interact with the customer to determine his/her goals AND be able to manoeuvre in the work area.

And THAT is the problem with these "predictions" by random people. They postulate a future but they don't explain all the technological advances necessary to get there.

Because they don't know all of the requirements or how those requirements can be automated.

A magic A.I. will figure it out. Just need the magic A.I. and then ... well ... magic happens. And it's A.I.

Let's start with their name:
The Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity.

whatever

Next, click on the link to go to a page that is, essentially, the summary posted here. Click on a link there to go to a page with summaries of the scenarios. Click on each one of those ...

whatever

The scenarios:

1. The new normal - postulates that there is NOTHING you can do to stop crackers anywhere in the world from cracking your systems.

2. Omega - remember Isaac Asimov's "Hari Seldon" and "psychohistory"? Well this postulates exactly that but at an individual level. Each PERSON'S behaviour can be modelled and predicted.

3. Bubble 2.0 - advertising companies go bankrupt and criminals buy their data sets. Because their data is always so accurate.

4. Intentional Internet of Things - networked water meters and Internet connected fridges lead to a Utopia. But crackers seek to exploit the massive number of Things connected in your house.

5. Sensorium - your fitbit tells you (and the Internet) how far you've walked and how happy/sad you are. Crackers hack your hormones and endorphins.

whatever whatever whatever whatever whatever

I don't think "worst-case" means what they think it means. O "nightmares". Or "security".

And now go a step further.

Suppose you were treated for depression years ago. So now you're on The List.

What is there to stop employers from using that list for "background checks" on potential employees?

Now you are also unemployable.

And yes, The List WOULD be abused in exactly that fashion.

From The New York Times:

"We are dropping cyberbombs," Mr. Work said. "We have never done that before."

Yeah. Right.

Wait, it gets better:

The campaign has been conducted by a small number of "national mission teams," newly created cyberunits loosely modeled on Special Operations forces.

And by "loosely" they mean "are people" and "paid by the government".

Remember, replace all the "cyber" with "Facebook" and you'll get a better idea of what they're really doing.

There's also the issue of accidentally killing the wrong person, which is always a risk with the death penalty, but admittedly doesn't seem like much of an issue in a case like this.

And that's the catch. Once you allow the death penalty for a specific crime/situation that will be used as justification for applying it in "similar" instances.

Which will, in turn, be used to apply it in slightly less "similar" instances.

And so forth.

We cannot TRUST the government NOT to abuse its authority. So we have to LIMIT that authority.

You don't even have to go through all of that if you just want to stop the script-kiddies around the world.

Move your SSH (don't use telnet) server to a different, RANDOM, port above 1024 and 99.99% of the login attacks will vanish.

This won't make your server any more secure but it will make your logs a lot cleaner.

Plz help!

I've accidentally routed all the toilets at work into the hamburger machine. I will be in trouble if anyone finds out how much poop is in the hamburgers.

Ha ha! It was just my marketing idea. Plz buy my hamburgers.

Why is no one buying my hamburgers?