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.

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.

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.

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.

Since when has Sony cared about bad reviews? Even disappointed moviegoers are putting money in Sony's pockets.

Indeed, though antagonizing your opponents like that probably isn't going to help the cause.

The truth is that pretty much everyone inclined to running gun battles probably already has guns that they carry concealed - law be damned. Or signed up for a shiny blue shield that provides near-immunity from the law. Laws against concealed carry serve primarily to make sure that honest citizens make easy victims.

I absolutely agree, and strongly support human exploration in situations where those arms can actually leave their protective tin can to interact with the environment. But hands aren't much good for working with gasses, or in environments that would kill even a man in the best protective suit we can make that would still allow mobility. Deep-sea exploration gets a bit of a pass in my mind simply because it's so difficult communicating through large distances of water with any kind of bandwidth, and tethers introduce all sorts of issues of their own.

Sure, it's an expensive toy - far more than *I* would be willing to pay certainly - but it squirts plastic out of a nozzle to make weak, crude plastic "toys". Arguably useful, especially when you're $4k/pound away from the nearest general store, but not remotely in the same league as the professional-grade printers working in laser-cured resin, sintered titanium, high temperature ceramics, etc.