The OP may have meant "nearing," instead of "past." One of the reasons we went through so many FAE weapons during Desert Storm is that they were close to their Best Use By date and it was cheaper to expend them in combat than pay to dispose of them.

Morgauxo,

The important point is that nobody has made even the most rudimentary artificial intelligence, let alone one with feelings and emotions. The Softbanc blatherer is just using the latest trick to get noticed: spew dire warnings about the risks of AI. AI, which doesn't exist and isn't even remotely on the horizon, even after lots of naturally intelligent people have devoted their lives to achieving.

Personally, I think it's demons from the pit of hell we'd better watch out for. We have more evidence for them than we do for AI.

So it's clear, then: the new fast route to instant fame is for ignorant pundits to make lofty proclamations of caution regarding artificial intelligence. You can't be faulted, because it's better to be safe than sorry, right?

I call bogus on the whole AI skyfaller tactic. The only part of AI that is real is the A. To date, absolutely no intelligence of any kind has been artificially produced. And to beat the duped to the punch: No, self-driving cars are not AI. Neither are baseball umpiring systems, chess computers, drone flock controllers, or medical diagnostic aids named Watson. Not even machines passing the so-called "Turing Test" are AI. (Easy disproof: If a computer that can convince a human that the computer is a human means the computer is as intelligent as a human, then is a computer that can convince a dog that the computer is a dog as smart as a dog?)

I'd be more justified holding forth on the importance of designing freeways to support hovercar traffic. That's actually a technology on the measurable horizon. AI is, well, a fantasy. We are no closer to AI today than we were when the field of AI research was founded at a conference on the campus of Dartmouth College in the summer of 1956. In fact, after some fifty years of no progress achieving the original definition of AI, the AI research community decided it had better reframe its terms. So it renamed actual artificial intelligence (which nobody has achieved) "strong AI" and everything accomplished to date "weak AI".

So fear not. The sky isn't falling. There is no AI.

It's Turings. All the way down. :)

My guess, and it's only a guess, is the Mott transition.

If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?

Your Internet connection is not information. It is a complex system of wires/tubes/fibers run by computers, and uses electricity, occupies land. It is operated by a corporation who pays people, negotiates with other corporations, and deals with/pays for many subtle and not so subtle political aspects of the whole thing.

But if you're going to make everyone look at it through the lens of skin pigment, then you also have to do what the producer of those statistics did: take into account the demographics surrounding high crime rates. Police shootings rarely, rarely occur outside the context of the cops interacting with someone in the middle of a violent or headed-towards-violent situation. Though the media is focused on things like that idiot campus cop who shot the guy trying to speed away from a traffic stop, that's NOT the sort of thing that makes up, in any meaningful way, the larger body of numbers. Take into account the wildly higher rates of violent domestic disputes, basic street crime, robberies, and (if nothing else) gang warfare, and the percentage of police shootings involving people of one skin tone relative to the percentage of that skin tone in the population takes a back seat to what that percentage is actually doing when it comes to the sorts of activities that bring wary cops rushing to the scene.

If one insists on comparing skin color percentages in the wider population, compare skin color percentages involved in violent crime before doing math about how often cops have violent encounters with a given group. Or, skip the whole skin color thing, and focus on geography. In places where cops have a hugely higher rate of violent criminals and behavior to deal with, they end up having to use force more often than in places where the population is much less routinely violent.

No, actually. I'm just describing something I pay for, and which I like. I know that's not fashionable, but it actually is possible to like a company and it's products/services. On balance, I think Amazon is a remarkable operation. Not shy about it. The more people who check them out and also use their services, the better it gets for me. I generally - though not always - like what Bezos is doing outside the context of Amazon directly.

True, but I find that I can pick up 90% of what I need through Prime. And the fact that I get to watch a rebooted Top Gear that Amazon is paying to produce - a nice bonus.

I have to say, I keep stumbling across new reasons that I like Prime. Had a gig this evening, and needed some spendy batteries. A couple of clicks this morning, and they were on my doorstep in the afternoon. It only takes a few events like that in a year to make Prime worth the modest cost. But so many other little goodies that Bezos keeps tossing in to remind me why it's good to stick around. I have enough parts and pieces shipped in that it pays for itself in time and shipping costs regardless. The rest is frosting on that cake. It will be interesting to see how much of a production budget Amazon gives these guys to make their particular form of entertainment. I anticipate lots of drone footage of cars doing entertaining things.

And your point is? At least I included a link to the reference because even I don't expect most Slashdotters to recognize that one! (To be honest, what I remembered was the name of the island, and worked from there.)

That course would have ended up at Zero Zero Island and Colonel Bleep had to take action to keep his headquarters secret.

(Data syncing by default)

And thus does opt-out rear its ugly head, yet again. Not only that, if what you write is true the average user won't even know that it's happening, that they can stop it or that they have any control whatsoever over what gets sent to the cloud. Now, consider what happens when you're on limited bandwidth and you get a bill for far more traffic than you can account for. If I ran Windows (I don't.) this would be one more reason for me to avoid Windows 10 like the plague.

I don't live out in the country, but I often have to drive country roads at night. Here in California, there's a white line marking the division between the road itself and the shoulder, and there's something built into the shoulder that makes it rumble when a car goes over it. This makes it much easier to stay on the road, even in rain or fog. (We don't get snow here, but I'd imagine that the sound from the shoulder would still work even if you couldn't see the line.)

You can't fly over people when below 1000' (and can't fly above 400'). . FAA RC statuary regulation and FAA FAR part 91. https://www.faa.gov/uas/media/...

What you are talking about already exists, and has existed for decades, and is in use on tens of thousands of households across the fruited plains.