And a corollary to that is that a leader is somebody who goes ahead of the followers. I suspect that Linus has stopped being the one who runs ahead of the development of Linux, and perhaps he is getting a bit frustrated over the position he is in. This is similar to the old problem with revolutionary leaders, in a way: when the revolution is over, there is no longer the need for them and their ability to inspire a great, simple vision; it is time for the grey administrators to take over.

What a nice and pious sentiment; the problem is that sometimes the sewer bursts and we all get covered in shit. When that happens, who is responsible for the repairs, and who is to blame for the epidemics that follow? The millions of people who used the sewer to take a dump, or the company providing the service?

I think this is about freedom under responsibility; the internet company that provides the service makes money out of it, and just as other companies are responsible for the harmful effects of their business activities on society or the environment, so it is for internet companies. Now, please note that I am not saying that people making stupid comments is harmful, just that there has to be responsibility when there is freedom. It still remains to be determined whether harm has followed from the content posted on Youtube or elsewhere; but if it is seen to be the case, then these rules mean that responsibility can be placed with the service provider.

That's a good discussion; to summarize: autonomous AIs should be made safe for humanity, but what does that mean, and how can it be done?

The problem, as I see it, is that even if we could agree on a universal set of rules and somehow implemented those rules in the code, it could still be faulty, and it might not cover all situations to which the rules ought to apply. To solve that, we need to give AIs the same sort of social instincts that we and other apes have, because that is where our ability to make moral judgements and solve ethical problems comes from; history also shows that, despite all our very big failings as humans, we have still over time and on average managed to become more ethical - perversions like ISIS were once more common, after all. It may well be that equipping AIs with social instincts is the best and most stable way to make them safe - eventually.

I think perhaps the things to worry about are more immediate than what will happen if/when AI becomes worthy of its name. Things like using autonomous devices in warfare, for example. Or what if we come to trust autonomous systems to such a degree that most of us no longer have the skills or insight needed to perform basic, necessary tasks? IMO it is not good to get into a situation where we are fully dependent on a technology that might malfunction, and which we can't fix.

There's even a musical about him, I think: Billy Idiot, it's called. About this young boy, Billy, who breaks away from his background in a coal mining community to become a ballet dancer. Something like that, yeah.

Isn't it time we started waking up to the fact that computing and technology isn't about 'cool' or 'fun'? And wouldn't it be better to show that little bit of respect to young men and women, to not expect that the only thing they could possibly have an interest in is 'cool' and 'fun'? Most young, clever people simply want to get to grips with life in a serious way, to develop their skills and feel they are doing something wortwhile. Why else do so many young choose careers that are demanding?

Technology is for the most part demanding, it is difficult to learn and to be successful with, but that is exactly why it is so hugely rewarding. Some of my greatest moment with code had little to do with anything that you could call fun or cool - it was things like writing my first COBOL and FORTRAN programs (how uncool is that?), discovering how good it is to use vi, writing my first Java Enterprise application (a pathetic little thing, I can assure you), installing and IPLing OS/360 on a Hercules emulator.

Good SW Engineers are not people who think it is cool or fun - if that is your approach to life, then you'll probably end up writing worhtless apps with a minimum of effort, serving adverts to an unwilling public, run-of-the-mill stuff. A good SW Engineer is somebody who enjoys doing these things for their own sake, for the joy of discovery.

We ARE up shit creek - the question is, do you have a paddle?

I think what you are saying is, there are certain skills that are always going to be in demand, and they have little to do with new, emerging, disruptive or whatever buzz-word industry, but are the same skills that have always been useful, the common theme being practical ability - that you are able figure out which end of the hammer you hold on to etc.

I think the important thing here is to figure out what the future is likely to hold in store in terms of computer technology. What do people think the world of computing will look like in 10 - 20 years' time? My feeling is that we have already reached the limits to what it is meaningful to put into a personal computer some time ago, so I don't think we will see much growth in the personal computer devices. I think we have reached a plateau as far as wearable devices go - the fate of gadgets like Google Glass is suggestive, and I don't think Apple''s watch will be more than a passing fad. The internet in it's current form is so rife with crime that I think, unless we really manages to solve that particular problem, we will see most of the things that are sensitive and important for our societies withdrawn from the network: things like financial transaction, public services etc.

On that optimistic note, I think the safest bet on technology in the future may well be "the enterprise network" and the technologies that fit into it. Things like distributed computing, enterprise applications, application servers, that sort of thing. If one were to focus on one technology more than anything else, my person recommendation would be Java EE and application servers (Glassfish, WebLogic, JBoss ...)

I think it it something uniquely American, this attitude that it is a good idea to settle millions of people in an environment that simply cannot sustain them, and then spend huge resources on keeping it going with a sort of 'pacemaker'; and to hell with the long term consequences. I've been to California - and I never stopped being amazed at the sort of boneheaded, willful blindness that seemed to be the common theme. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't most of the state arid - desert or semi-desert? I walked around in the area near Oracle's tin-foil silo and noticed that the natural vegetation was things you'd expect in an arid climate, but all these office building were surrounded by 20 centimeter thick grass-lawns that were kept soaking wet. They weren't even useful for sitting on.

If this was just a few, ultra-rich companies, you could shrug your shoulders, but this seems to be the general attitude; so farmers pump the rivers dry to sustain crops that are unusually demanding in terms of water needs - in a desert - and they do so without even trying to preserve water by investing in covered irrigation channels etc. Plus, of course, irrigation brings with it problems with build up of salt in the soil and so on.

The solution to this is not to compund the error, but to learn to live more sustainably. I mean ideally you wouldn't be idiotic enough to place a city like Las Vegas in the middle of the Nevada Desert or wherever, but even so, it is actually possible to live with less waste, without even lowering your living standards. Just compare the average America's resource consumption with the average, North European's - without going into numbers (because I don't have them at hand), there is a stark difference, and the living standards in Europe are most certainly comparable to those in America, and probably better.

It is worth protecting the environment, even if you are not a tree-hugging hippie; it makes sense in every way. It isn't about pretty flowers and rare animals; the whole eco-system is connected, and different parts depend on each other - the more parts we take out because we can't be bothered to change our ways, the more rickety the whole thing becomes, until one day it may all come tumbling down. If you don't believe me, prove me wrong - with scientific evidence.

Of course - I just thought it was an apt comment on religious blindness to science in general. The Catholic church has not always been as enlightened, and unfortunately the attitude of many religions, Christians not least, is that religion or 'faith, as they call it, takes precedence over facts.

We have a number of observable facts: the fossil record, which we can date and which is clearly suggestive of species evolving from primivitve types to more advanced types. So, that evolution has taken place is very close to being an observed fact. The theory of evolution is an attempt at explaining HOW it happened, not whether it happened. The reason we call it a theory, not a hypothesis, is that it not only explains the huge amounts of observable facts, but also offers testable predictions - and passes the tests. Another reason evolution theory is science is, that it stand or falls with its ability to survive these ongoing tests.

The reason creationism has nothing to do with science is that it explains away facts it doesn't like, it has decided what the truth is from the outset and will never budge, even when faced with clear, contradictory evidence. I personally don't 'believe' in evolution simply because scientists say it is true, but because I can consider the evidence, think about the logic of the theory and make up my own mind. That is what scientists do. If you call that belief, then it is of an completely different kind than religious belief. A religious belief is not influenced by evidence; scientific belief says "I was wrong? Oh well, we live and learn"

There is an old joke, told by Dave Allen (can be found on Youtube):

The Pope is discussing with an atheist, and the Pope says: "You atheists are like a blind man, searching in a dark room for a black cat that isn't there!" - and the atheist replies: "Well, we are not so different, in fact - you Catholics too are like a blind man, search a dark room for a black cat that isn't there; but you believe you've found it!"

That is of course the worry, but I think in some ways this represents a real change, if only symbolically. Just think back a few years, when climate change first grabbed headlines, and all industrialized countries went "Oh no, we will not even discuss this, because it might hurt our short term profits". Now, at least, it is a goal of sorts, and you get taken seriously if you suggest ways to move away from fossil fuels; this is not a small thing. It is not ambitious enough, clearly, but I think it will now become a lot easier to move towards a carbon free world, new technologies that enable us to do so will be developed much faster than the pessimists think. What has held us back was not so much technological ability as it was unwillingness on the part of the politicians and their masters.

Not hate, just irritation at somebody who likes to show off a knowledge he hasn't got. A bit like when some manager tries to impress the engineering team with the fact that he once wrote a few lines of Excel BASIC code. It makes you wince.

This is not hate, by engineering standards, only mild scorn. Speaking for myself, I like good factual information backed by references if possible - Wikipedia matches that in many cases, so something like that, or perhaps articles on Science Daily:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/in...

The thing about medium.com is that it is targeted for a completely different audience; the people that like modern 'nature programs', with lots of movie-style cutting, funky sound-track, replayed sequences etc - probably very artistic, but tedious and drawn out ad infinitum and with very little factual information. Or, perhaps a bit like BBC's Horizon series, which also tends to be tediously sparse on real information (and I am a great fan of BBC in general, it has to be said).

A tip that can save you a good deal of wasted effort: if the link is to medium.com, they probably havn't got all that much of a clue. Medium.com is a glossy magazine on par with "Heat", "Hello" and the like; I can't imagine anybody with technical or scientific insight wanting to waste time on it.