Long ago - late '60s or early '70s - among the counter culture comic books like Zap, there was Sun-O-God Comix that was pretty outrageous in a wacky way. So this is hardly new. Central character was a yeshiva student. It'd be considered wildly anti-Semitic now but I'm sure the Christian Right would be the most offended. After all, this was back in the '60s. The whole point was to offend people. Like long hair and beards and no bra. Shocking!

Whatever my employer tells me to do with it.

My employer required me to set up and maintain a FB account for work related crap but I never, ever used it for personal stuff. I never felt FB was a good communication tool. Pain in the ass to use. As a software professional, when FB first came out I thought it would ultimately prove to be a security nightmare so I stayed away.

"The Sciences of the Artificial" by Herbert Simon. First edition is better than the later editions but you'll never find it so just read one of the later editions. Original focus was on the structural differences between natural sciences like chemistry or medicine and what Simon labels the artificial (from "artifice" - man made) sciences like engineering and economics. Simon won the Nobel Prize for Economics, the Turing Award, etc. Wiki him and then read the book. It's not very long and full of interesting ideas.

"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn. Sufficiently well known it requires no introduction. Just read it; it's good and will get you to think.

... under extreme duress.

then maybe the feedback is so minimal they're already dead and just don't know it ... yet.

Two points: one significant and one sorta silly.

Once autonomous cars are safer than human drivers, then no insurance company will sell auto insurance to an individual. Why would they? Any collision between an autonomous car and one driven by a meat monkey will always be judged the fault of the human driver. The companies operating the autonomous vehicles will have far too much at stake to permit any other result ... and their lawyers will be better.

Autonomous cars will be God's gift to suicide bombers because He wants them to live and bomb another day. No way autonomous cars will be allowed anywhere near important places like a courthouse or crowded places like a train station. You will have to walk the last kilometer or use your hoverboard.

It has always been my assumption that about half the time autonomous cars are moving about they will not have any occupants. Cars will be more like taxis that are summoned, take one or more passengers to someplace, and are then dismissed so they can go pick up the next rider(s). Oh yeah, rich folk will have cars that are driven by chauffeurs but the rest of us will not own automobiles any more than we own airplanes. So I expect a centralized car-management system will be aware of where each car is, where the police are, what roads are temporarily closed (why would an autonomous car ever take a rider through a section of road that was temporarily closed?), and so forth. Yep, it will be quite complicated. And you will hardly notice because you will have your nose in your work or book or news article or game or video show or whatever. Your car will stop and it will go - you will pay no attention because there's no need/point in paying attention. And if the cops want YOU, then your car will deliver you to them.

One of the (many) reasons English is so successful is where the burden of comprehension lies. It takes two to communicate: I will say a speaker and a listener. With French (to use the obvious example) it is the task of the speaker to speak near-perfect French or the listener is free to dismiss what the speaker has said as incomprehensible. With English, the burden of comprehension lies with the listener. If I go to a convenience store and the recent immigrant behind the cash register demolishes every sentence he utters, it is up to me to figure out what he just said and respond accordingly. Hence, almost anybody can "speak" English because it's okay to mangle every element and still be understood; it's the task of the listener to noodle out the intent of the speaker. There is a wonderful movie called "Joyeux Noel" about an historical incident that occurred on the front lines in France during the first Christmas of the First World War. The movie begins with the French troops who are all speaking French, of course, so the dialogue is subtitled as the characters speak. That was a good thing because my French is almost non-existant. Then the movie switches to the German side where the troops are all speaking German and the dialogue is subtitled as the characters speak, which was a good thing because my German, even after six years of study, ist sehr schlecht. Then the film moves to the Scottish troops, who are all speaking something that is clearly English but I couldn't understand a word they were saying. No subtitles, either. But the film makers know that is my problem because it's English (of sorts) so it's up to me to figure out the dialogue.

Jeez, everybody is so focused on SciFi and religion. Why not something that will actually raise your eyebrows like Nabokov's Lolita. Or maybe something that's, you know, difficult like Joyce's Ulysses.

First, beta isn't for the community - it's for the advertisers. Try taking "old" /. to some boardroom and showing it and saying, "Hey, ya wanna advertise to this incredible community of code nerds - many of whom are employed and make beaucoup bucks - then just sign here!" The response would be underwhelming. I've shown classic /. to hundreds of people looking over my shoulder and they are not impressed. They don't get the content and, to the simple minded, the site design looks antiquated so they assume the content is quaint as well. Beta is so the owners can get better advertisers to pay more for the privilege of showing you shit to buy. Second, (and this point is really about my awful workplace so it isn't relevant for many in the community) I like to read /. at work while my code is running and I've got five minutes to surf. With all those stupid pictures and out-sized graphics to chew on, the goddam firewall forces beta to take forever to load. It loads like "Slate" or something. Who needs that? There are a lot of sites I don't go to at work because they are just too slow. If /. is like that, I will never read it again. Third, why pictures? Is that what code and IT and science are about now? Pictures and out-sized graphics that convey jack-all? How does a great big graphic blob carry more information than a small version of the same graphic? Should we insert emoticons in 20-point now because that way they carry more meaning and information? I want to read intelligent articles and discussion, not look at more dumb pictures like Huff Po or something. Fourth, I say thumbs down big-time to beta. Slashdot beta is not a place I want to go.

Human-level AI is a very low hurdle.