Probably not, that sounds like a qualitative observation. How exactly would you use that to translate an arbitrary new discovery about the properties of particle/wave duality into an equally rigorous description of uncertainty properties?

Perhaps because it's insane? We have a half-billion years of evolution shaping our brains into something reasonably stable, and we're not exactly rational beings. What makes you assume that all the artificial minds we create will be stable? Especially the early ones would seem almost guaranteed to have serious issues.

Or perhaps because some idiot sets one of it's objectives to be "minimize human suffering and death" without considering the implications. For an AI without free will all it takes is one slip-up that places "do X" at a higher priority than "let us stop you" and you've got a fair chance that somewhere along the line "kill all humans" becomes an optimized solution.

It doesn't even have to be a bug - one cosmic ray flips the wrong bit and suddenly the negative two million weighting you gave to "exterminate humanity" becomes positive.

Allow me to share a thought with you...

Oh. Sorry, I can't seem to remember what it was.

Don't knock it it creates more little middle managers who will fight to keep their meager power and title.

There was one project I worked on where there were people who's job was to go over each morning and pick up a pile of paper that had been printed out from one computer system and then go and type it into another computer system. There was enough push back from shitty little middle managers who realized that the project would end their little fiefdoms that the project got canceled. If your job can be replaced by some wire and a router you really should have been retraining for a new job years ago.

Nope, not even entropy-breaking compression can transpose information from real to imaginary space.

There is a difference between having a competing theory, and proving that two broadly recognized phenomena are actually mathematically equivalent.

I bet you didn't even read the math.

On the other hand, if this discovery can be used to further simplify the just simplified results we can use it recursively until all of quantum physics is reduced to a three-second advertising jingle that anyone can understand.

There is a wide gulf between suspecting two phenomena are related, and having discovered the rigorous mathematical framework that lets you translate discoveries from one theoretical framework to the other without losing information.

Why does jay-walking turn you into an evil anti-american, versus walking ten feet down the road to use the crosswalk?

It doesn't, and the law is mostly ignored*, unless your flouting of it is causing problems. For example that guy that's always hanging out near the high school with 10lbs of weed in his pack is probably not a being of sweetness and light, but if he's slimy _enough_ it will be difficult to catch him in the act. Considering the ambivalence and outright dread of legalization among a not-insignificant portion of the population, it is reasonable to give the authorities the power to preemptively intervene in the most problematic potential side effects, forseen and unforseen.

And yeah, I know that was a literal "think of a children" argument there, but I think this is one of the times when that is a legitimate concern. I don't know about you, but I certainly remember such people from my high school days, including cases of kids ending up dead because of (presumed) business disagreements.

* Of course the problem with any law often ignored is that the authorities can also decide to use it to harass people for ...unauthorized reasons. It would be nice if there was a way to explicitly state that certain laws exist are intended to be applied with discretion, and give them additional safeguards against abuse.

I find this somewhat interesting given that people in Colorado go to Nebraska to get good fireworks, when ever I am heading out there to visit friends and relatives in CO there is always a request to pick them up some fireworks from either South Dakota or Nebraska on my way in. What is most amusing is that in both Nebraska and South Dakota any out of stater can purchase fireworks but residents are required to have a special permit that costs extra, so at least COis more open in that they don't restrict their own citizens like NE does with fireworks.

There's your problem - you were trying to convince people with logic. That almost never works, even among intelligent, educated people. Do a little research on how to actually have a chance to change people's minds - there's even a few good TED talks on the subject, though I can't recall any details at the moment.

Thanks. Hadn't heard a lot of that before.

Yes.
Considering that I have never had to deal with threats to my life from another person but have with the wild critters it seems unlikely that I would be more threatened by people than the critters. With wild critters something as simple as a warning shot will usually send them off in most cases where as if it comes to needing a firearm with a person the first shot had better be center of mass instead of the waring shot because you just escalated the situation at that point. For example the cougar went running back from whence it came when I shot the ground near by but the wolves were a bit different as the one that I could see ran off but I could hear the rest of the pack just off the road most of the way back to camp as they were stalking me. Add in that if you have a mother bear and cubs and if you get between them it doesn't usually end well for you.

In general there are more problem people but that seems to be more of a function population size since there are probably more people in the US than there are wolves, cougars, and black bears combined. Also given that I don't live in a shit hole crime ridden city with drug and gang problems I probably have a better chance of winning the lottery than being the victim of gun violence.

Well, not with the level of dexterity shown in the video, but give him a few months of practice and I bet he would become far more dexterous. Though the comment about having to operate the joints sequentially rather than simultaneously could be problematic, unless that's just a "training wheels" limitation.

It looked as though those metal braces were suspending the arms several inches further from his body than necessary. I wonder if I'm seeing it wrong, or if they were perhaps trying to prevent him accidentally ripping out his abdomen with the elbows while learning.

I don't know about power though - granted it probably wouldn't run all that long off a laptop battery, but a human arm doesn't normally exert all that much power, and human muscle is *far* less efficient (18%-26%) than modern electric motors. I mean a soda-sized Li-ion battery can power an electric bicycle for an hour or so, and I imagine having a six-pack strapped to your back would be a small price to pay for a half-day of having arms.