Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment The cozy catastrophe fantasy (Score 1) 119

... is a movie trope where everyone in the world has perished, except for the protagonist, who is now free to roam the world unmolested, help himself to any of the remaining resources available, do whatever he/she wants, etc.

The fantasy part is the idea that the catastrophe will get rid of all the people you don't care about, freeing up their resources for your own use, while sparing you and the people and resources that you do care about.

The people in this article can be blasé about AI killing humanity because at some level they think that they and what's important to them will be spared. Most likely, they think their wealth will save them. If and when they find out that they will suffer and die as well, their acceptance of the idea will evaporate quickly.

Comment Re:a hater? Not working for CNN... (Score 1) 47

Once these robots get better at their designed purpose, it will free up human labor for some other activity that cannot yet be performed by a machine.

What's the end-game there, once there are no activities left that cannot be performed better by a machine? No more jobs for humans, and then everyone retires (in the optimistic scenario) or starves/riots (in the pessimistic scenario)?

Comment Re:Is by-land the answer? (Score 1) 47

Air-delivery can be faster for small items, but land-delivery is much more energy-efficient, since you don't have to support the weight of the robot and the payload for the duration of the trip.

That means that the wheeled bot can have a larger range, carry larger payloads, and needs to be recharged less often. OTOH it has to wait for stoplights, can only go 5-10 miles per hour, etc.

Comment An odd mix... (Score 1) 112

Of sinister sounding dystopian stuff and naive optimisim.

I will work 7 by 24 for the next 20 years to fricking do this.

I suppose he will be giving '110%' all the while? Will be interesting to see someone give up sleep, food, bathroom, and everything else for 20 years.

your child's teachers were, in essence, stacks of machines.

And this is supposed to ingratiate the concept with the audience?

Suppose that surveillance architecture

Again, "surveillance architecture" is a pitch for some education we are supposed to want?

Suppose your child's deep love of school minted a new class of education billionaires.

Seems like the fallacy that if everyone just had a billion dollars, everyone would live like billionaires do today...

Comment Alternate plan (Score 1) 63

Take the $billions you were going to spend on Solar Powered Space Data Centers, and instead build equivalent Solar Powered data centers here on Earth at 1% of the cost. Make up for the lack of 24/7 sunlight by adding additional solar panels, energy storage, and transmission lines as necessary.

Then take the other 90% of the money that you just saved, and spend it on cocaine and hookers.

Your ping times will be much better also.

Comment Re:If I don't like it, then you shouldn't bet (Score 1) 73

But the alcohol in the 'simply don't like it' has no impact on you. If you say 'DUI', then I think people would say 'bad' easily.

Similarly, if you are partaking of a sport, but that sport is being distorted by gambling, then it's fair to call it out as 'bad', since it has impacts beyond the people actively doing the gambling.

Comment Re:Err, NYT is right. (Score 3, Insightful) 69

a talented developer that knows how to leverage LLMs

LLM usage is hardly a demanding talent in and of itself. Being able to judge and make the use/salvage/discard choice when the LLM presents the material it does is more about coding and less about 'talented with LLMs'. Anyone good at coding can add LLM without a huge challenge, so you don't *need* to find someone with 'LLM' experience and lack of it doesn't make you unemployable.

The whole damn point of LLM is, to the extent that it works, it's easy. Just the hiccup is that 'to the extent it works'.

Comment Re:Not what it once was (Score 1) 104

It's a bit sad to think that the internet has gone from something that was originally designed to be capable of functioning after a nuclear attack to something that can now be disabled by one stray bullet.

Then you'll be happy to find out that 99.9999% of the Internet was unaffected.

Slashdot Top Deals

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. -- John Muir

Working...