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Comment Intelligence is Dangerous (Score 2) 262

Just look at how dangerous "natural" intelligence is and all the problems and disasters it has caused when it goes wrong - either through making mistakes or through mental disorders. Why should the artificial version be different? The question is will the benefits outweigh the downsides? Clearly for "natural" intelligence the answer is a resounding yes and I expect this will also be the case for the artificial version too.

Comment Re:Interesting argument (Score 1) 124

Congress decided by giving the FCC the authority. In a nation of over 300 million people no legislative assembly could ever hope to directly deal with every possible permutation of policy decision or interpretation. I doubt there has been a legislaturw since the rise of the nation state that could.

Comment Result of Technology (Score 1) 904

The whole system is designed for people having stuff "they only sometimes need".

That is the result of technology which has massively reduced the cost to produce items. Once the cost to purchase and store the item becomes less than the cost to rent the item (factoring in something extra for the convenience of ownership) people will buy it rather than rent it. However it is not clear to me that the rental model is more efficient: there is an energy cost to moving the device around as well as the cost of the people to manage everything.

Even if you think of massively advanced technology which might let you 3d-print tools, use them, and then break them down and reuse the raw material to build your next item it is still not a given that the energy cost of that would be less than just storing different objects for occasional use.

Comment Re:HAHAHAHA! (Score 1) 231

When the signs and lane markers are covered by snow and ice it will just default to using the same markers everyone else is using; the crashed cars driven by idiot humans who thought they could see the lane markers.

Seriously though, no autonomous vehicle would be dependent on lane markers as the sole feature for positioning, you need to use a multitude of inputs ranging from using markers to using LIDAR to map geometry of the area, through projection of probable trajectories and even to using prior knowledge or map data of the road. You have to have a multitude of independent systems cooperating, validating and agreeing on the most likely model for the current reality. Any autonomous vehicle deemed safe enough to actually operate autonomously should be significantly more capable of reliably assessing the situation than the average human. If any climate presents a difficulty for the detection and navigation part (as opposed to purely physical performance limitations) for an autonomous car it should not be allowed into traffic as it's obviously nowhere near capable enough to trust with human lives.

Comment Re:IE all over again (Score 5, Informative) 371

When I upgraded to Windows 10 yesterday, there was a screen that came up that asked me if I wanted to reset the default apps. I said no for my browser and media player, and when it completed, Chrome and VLC were still the default applications. I think it's a little underhanded, but not as underhanded as the article suggests.

Comment Re:Stop promoting this fraudster! (Score 1) 77

He feeds idiots who think having an all 'libre' laptop is important. I'm not really seeing a problem with that. He's a poacher of fanboys who can't think critically.

Both sides win in that deal. The fanboy get to rant on about their Stallman fetishes and Todd gets to part them of their money.

The way I see it, its a match made in heaven, they deserve each other.

Comment Re:Percentages? (Score 1) 381

... You do realize there was proof (we sold them to him) and that he was bragging about it on national TV in order to keep Iran from walking all over his ass right?

Take your ignorance and shove it up your ass, your political agenda and reality are two entirely different things. It is possible to disagree with war and not have to make up a bullshit excuse for why you disagree, especially when you continue to drive your Ford Explorer around cheap gas because of it.

Comment Skewed (Score 4, Interesting) 381

A recent Childline poll found nearly 10% of 12-13-year-olds were worried they were addicted to pornography

Because you told them that because they looked at one image in a magazine that they were addicted. You set them up to answer that way, likely by saying 'Are you addicted to porn' while shaking your head yes at them suggestively.

A 12-13 year old has no fucking clue what addiction is, even if they were. I'm fairly certain based on its usage here that no one involved in the study or conversation about the study knows what addiction actually is to.

Infatuation is not addiction morons.

18% had seen shocking or upsetting images.

Actually its 100%, but the other 82% were smart enough not to mention the shit they've seen mommy and daddy do. The real world sucks, if they can't cope with 'upsetting images' then porn is the least of your concern and hiding the kid in a card board box for the rest of his/her life so they don't have to survive on their own might be your best bet.

As a result of our work with industry, more than 90% of UK consumers are offered the choice to easily configure their internet service through family-friendly filters

And 0% Use it because the parents aren't the ones that are freaked out about their kids looking at porn.

How sad is your world view when you think see two people do something entirely natural and REQUIRED FOR THE SURVIVAL OF OUR SPECIES and it offends you. And then to top it off, you have to freak out and project your personal issues with seeing boobies on to 12-13 year olds and convince them they are 'addicted' to something. 12-14 year olds are addicted to EVERYTHING THATS TABOO. If you told them it was dirty and sexual to brush their teeth 4 times a day, England would suddenly have the worlds healthiest teeth in the 12-13 year old group.

This kind of ignorance is spewed from some jack ass who doesn't have a kid (or isn't actually a parent to the kid) and doesn't realize that it will actually make MORE kids look at MORE porn.

How the fuck do people get old and totally forget what being a kid was like. It blows me away.

Comment Re:Why animals can't be given human rights. (Score 5, Insightful) 172

The issue is significantly more nuanced than that. Most people, and certainly most biologists and behavioral experts agree that there are certain animals that demonstrate sentience in a fashion at least analogous to the way humans think and feel. The great apes, and chimps, in particular, are among that rather rare group who share a significant number of emotional and cognitive traits with humans (little wonder, we're only separated by a few million years of evolution). So the idea here, so far as I understand it, is that those similarities are significant enough that chimps should enjoy, if not human rights, then at least some rights elevated from other far less human animals.

I tend to weigh on the side that sentient animals should receive protections similar to the protections we give to children or to adults deemed legally incompetent. That means they can't exercise many of the rights that we recognize adult humans have, but neither can they be wantonly exploited, physically or psychologically harmed.

But to pursue this in the courts is ludicrous. Personhood is fairly well defined in most, if not all, jurisdictions and it pretty much explicitly excludes anyone who isn't a member of H. sapiens. This is going to need to be something that is dealt with at the legislative level, and it's going to be a long fight.

Comment Re:Tipping? (Score 1) 904

Or drive by's.

A few years ago the U.S. military were evaluating a new hybrid vehicle to replace the Hummer. Their main interest was logistics, since Hummers aren't the most economical vehicles to operate. They couldn't help but notice that in electric mode their new vehicle was quiet.

Around here the Toyotas are positively noisy. The Teslas, on the other hand, only make a faint whirr from their tires.

...laura

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