So I live in Downtown Atlanta Ga which is far from suburban. There are plenty of taxi stands around but I prefer to use Uber. Why? Because almost invariably the taxis do not operate "within the law as the state, the counties, and the cities require."

When I walk up to a cab they ask me where I'm going, and if I'm not going very far they almost always refuse to give me a ride. Many also don't turn on their fare meters and make up rates (I've lived Downtown for 16 years, I know what a ride is supposed to cost). My understanding is that both of these actions are in violation of the ordinances that govern the operation of Taxis in the city.

Could I report these people or challenge their bogus practices? Sure. But instead I just take Uber where these issues don't exist and I ALWAYS get excellent customer service - whether in a Town Car or a Hyundai.

The situation in other cities might be different, but here, the cab drivers have dug their own graves.

A greater intelligence may prefer internally inconsistent rules and use complex heuristics to choose between them. To us, the results of that process may seem so unfathomably complex that it looks random.

I enjoyed this story which is related: http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/g/mcnrsts.html

I hope you are right. On the other hand, they may decide that we will live and die by the rules that we created in some sort of ethical calculus involving self-determination.

Bravo!

But the AI's will be able to move. They'll be able to move very quickly, indeed.

The robots might be cheaper today. Especially if it is just a webcam, microphone, motorized wheels, battery and the cheapest wireless networking computer being operated by a server in a more secure area of the store.

I imagine a single guard monitoring feeds from ten of these roaming around a wal-mart. The guard doesn't even have to be in the wal-mart. Throw a blanket over it and the guard knows something is wrong and calls physical security.

Throw in some advanced mapping that can compare expected camera images to actual images and use the human to examine positive signals and dismiss the false positives. You might be able to up that human monitor to monitor 100 to 1000 units depending on the false positive rate and the rate of actual incidents.

99% of the time, nothing is happening during security guard duty.

OMG. I didn't realize it wasn't K9 until you pointed it out.

I'm happy that a few versions from now it might be vaguely dog shaped.

And maybe it will have a helpful Death Ray in its nose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HgejSCHRi8

And confusing the Doctor by naming it K-9.

Fool! Don't you know that Daleks can levitate?

This decision will also be used precedence by the machines to decide how humans should be treated post-singularity. Choose wisely.

Yep.

In this case, all lower paid employees will be outsourced to a contracting company that may or may not be a fully owned subsidiary of the original employer.

I think I may love you.

The previous sentence may contain a typo.

I have some stand-up open mics on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoJjJOzT5vi4FqOOQXaUiNw

This is just another example of the government cutting funding for the arts. Sure, it may be security theatre but these days that is the only kind of theatre I see to have time for.

Maybe we can get the National Endowment for the Arts to pick up the slack. Or they could move to an NPR model and hold pledge drives.

They make money the old fashion way: Volume.

He's talking about glasses-free holographic 3D that perfectly reconstructs the light field you would see if you were looking at the real object. With that you get motion parallax, stereo perception and the ability to focus.