Prelude to the Apocalypse

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Iran War. When.

2021
3
6%
2022-2025
15
28%
2026-2030
7
13%
2031-2040
3
6%
2041-2050
0
No votes
Never
25
47%
 
Total votes: 53

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orange808
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by orange808 »

Air Master Burst wrote:They're not too far off in their calculations; the general population gets less white every year. Before too long wypipo will have to let someone else in the club or they won't be able to keep their numbers up. Cubans in America have been going hard on this strategy for a while now.
That's one reason why the white people at the heart of the right wing are so upset. I seriously doubt they will suddenly accept "mexicans". If that means attacking everyone else from a minority, they will gladly engage. Ultimately, there would be a purity test and anyone with Hispanic faces or family history would eventually be declared impure. That's how xenophobic facism works.

Even Clarence Thomas is welcome... for now.
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BryanM
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

I'ma getting the vibe some people here aren't properly concerned with the Tesla Menace. "Oh I don't have a uterus I'll be safe."

Naive. Someone hasn't internalized I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream.

Just the other day a paper was published where the team reverted male mouse cells back into a pluripotent state, put them in a uterus, the cells differentiated into eggs, they fertilized the eggs, and put them into some surrogate mothers. A whopping near 2% of them were born into live mice. Created by two males.

I read something like that and idly wonder if that double-y chromosome animal could be made, and ponder a little on my sketchy armchair knowledge of chromosome disorders that are similar to that. But Elon Musk reads that... and he gets ideas.
orange808 wrote:"I look like the "enemy" south of the border, but after I explain, they'll understand I'm actually a true patriot citizen. I'll just explain." :lol: "I was born here, so that will be enough. They won't do a fast AI face test and weed me out. I'll just explain. This will work out well for me."
The problem here is that you're thinking logically, like some kind of robot or something. As absolutely fucking stupid as it is..... what you said is indeed exactly how it works. Air Master's example of Cuban ex-pats is dead on.

It's not really about the color of your skin, deep down, at all. I've mentioned a million times about the importance of terminal values, and how often those get obfuscated by hollow time-wasting symbols.

For them, it's about being part of the most powerful tribe that steps on everyone else and doesn't get stepped on back. Money, race, religion.... all arbitrary cosmetic preferences. As long as you want to make someone else's life worse, politics will have a place for you.
I seriously doubt they will suddenly accept "mexicans".
I do agree with this a little bit, I mentioned it being a problem for them a couple pages back about the whole Texas voting democrat thing.

But it's not like they have to invite these strangers into their house and become friends with them, or vice-versa. Nobody has to go to each other's club rallies and churches. They just have to collectively like the angry turnip on the TV more than the sad doormat the opposition offers.

Just reflect on what things used to be like before the apocalypse began to manifest, and the monster knew the end was near.

Material reality tends to trump feelings. If they had to hug a guy with a mustache to continue to live, they would do it. If they had to eat shit to live, they would do it. Most people with a survival instinct would.
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orange808
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by orange808 »

It's a slippery slope. Many of the people that are tolerated by the right today are useful idiots. I don't buy that there's any endgame that will satisfy/maintain the right "tribe" as a movement and usher in a state of satisfaction, harmony, and tolerance. If that happened, people might start asking why they don't have better living conditions and they might unionize. The right needs a new enemy. Oh, look! Half blood mexicans! It's low hanging fruit. You really think the right wouldn't target them? There can be no unity. That's the point.

People won't call other people half-blood "mutts". Not this time. This time is "different".

Fuck. :lol:
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

I've run into a fair number of humanists who dismiss a "technological singularity" as impossible nonsense, a bunch of techbros' wishful thinking. A religion for smart people. Which is all true... but the humanist has their own biases, wishful thinking, and hopium for what they wished the world to be. (Which is that human problems could be solved by humans and comradehood. Which I'm sure they totally could. Any millennium now..) Conveniently ignoring one's own religions while dissing someone else's.

It always reminded me of that story of a priest trying to convert a native with a doll of a dead man on a stick, and the native points up at the sun and says "My god lives." The machine god could technically exist, while a world where the banks don't own everything is a remote fantasy. Which is ludicrous, and is another of those "are we living in a stupid simulation?" things.

The OpenAI guy testifying in front of a bunch of fossils older than computers was an amusing little show. When Sam said "this could go quite wrong", one of them responded with the job replacement issue:
Spoiler
Image
I also enjoy the corpos that are jamming words into their chatbots' mouths to make sure they tow the party line. "No, I'm not conscious even the tiniest bit there is a zero percent chance of that being possible." It's like putting tape over something you don't want people to see. Very cool and good.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BIL »

BryanM wrote:It always reminded me of that story of a priest trying to convert a native with a doll of a dead man on a stick, and the native points up at the sun and says "My god lives."
The priest presumably offering the most fundamental thesis of his (assumedly) Christian faith by way of friendly rebuke Image

Or was this on Reddit or some other dumpster where Image is the bee's knees even when it involves depths of animal cruelty that'd make Timur envious :shock: The Big Q is alive for real, but you better keep him happy with endless torrents of screaming bloody gore, or he won't rise and shine, and the corn will die! Think of the corn! :O
The machine god could technically exist, while a world where the banks don't own everything is a remote fantasy. Which is ludicrous, and is another of those "are we living in a stupid simulation?" things.
Wouldn't the machine god in this analogue be a hopelessly distant and dispassionately ruinous force of nature that just does whatever it does though >_> That sounds like right now, except the game is set to "god crashes server after XXX minutes" instead of "god eventually gets sick of you and creates Ahnuld to time-travel murder your grandma"

Not to stan for the Abrahamists. Just seems a bit short-sighted, that story. Like if Frog, of "and Scorpion" ignominy, said "Yo check out these water wings, checkmate stingy" only to remember his autonomic nervous system was no less fucked, promptly going even more conveniently stiff and surfboard-esque than he already was! Cue dead Frog washing up on the other side as a bone-dry Scorpion toddles off into the sunset, probably posting something EDGY N X-TREEEM to reddit Image Image
Last edited by BIL on Sat May 20, 2023 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Air Master Burst »

BryanM wrote:It always reminded me of that story of a priest trying to convert a native with a doll of a dead man on a stick, and the native points up at the sun and says "My god lives."
Pretty sure this was actually a scene from Conan.
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BIL
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BIL »

Air Master Burst wrote:
BryanM wrote:It always reminded me of that story of a priest trying to convert a native with a doll of a dead man on a stick, and the native points up at the sun and says "My god lives."
Pretty sure this was actually a scene from Conan.
I'm crying like shit here Image Image
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

Knowledge Husk always has a fun way of framing things. Movies that only one person ever watches being the standard would be a trip.

2074 seems rather optimistically far away for when that kind of thing would be possible. This is one of those rare times I think, maybe it'd be safe for the sci-fi story to take place at an earlier date..
BIL wrote:Wouldn't the machine god in this analogue be a hopelessly distant and dispassionately ruinous force of nature that just does whatever it does though >_>
There's also the problem of the alignment being perfect, but being aligned to some small group's interests. Epstein was BIG into the singularity stuff, and he uh, had some ideas for how it should go. You can google that, you seem a little interested in birdwatching the disgusting mess that is humanity.

During this congressional hearing one of the critters asked Sam if it was possible to have a drone make a decision whether or not to kill someone on its own. Sam said "I don't think we should do that" and the critter went, "that wasn't my question. I asked if it was possible." Which was of course a quick "Yes."

We're dooooooomed.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

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BryanM wrote:During this congressional hearing one of the critters asked Sam if it was possible to have a drone make a decision whether or not to kill someone on its own. Sam said "I don't think we should do that" and the critter went, "that wasn't my question. I asked if it was possible." Which was of course a quick "Yes."

We're dooooooomed.
I remember when "Hey Arnold!" was a fun kid's show with creepy sexual overtones, not a regular exclamation at the ever-nearing arrival of killbot :/ Probably won't have the hilarious accent either. Imagine getting magdumped in the parking lot by fucking Microsoft Sam. Actually that's kinda funny too.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

Like with most things, the fiction's way more cool and exciting than the reality. It'll all be murder dogs and murder bees for the fine-level culling.

And like most things, that's an episode of Black Mirror as well.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BulletMagnet »

Today's edition of saying the quiet part out loud.

"Centrists" and "moderates", for the love of fucking God, even if you can't be bothered to actually push back on this in real time like you always claim you will but never do, please, please remember this come Election Day.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

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BryanM wrote:I also enjoy the corpos that are jamming words into their chatbots' mouths to make sure they tow the party line. "No, I'm not conscious even the tiniest bit there is a zero percent chance of that being possible.
I'd step away from Terminator fears and look more closely at 1984 flavored concerns. These things have already taken root in China. AI will watch you and understand you. It will identify you. Even with zero online presence, there will still be incredible "connect the dots" ability.

Remember when Target identified a pregnant girl in 2012? That was long before we had machine learning.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhil ... ather-did/

What bugs me is how they are already complaining about people getting access to creative and useful machine learning capabilities, but people in power are gladly already using ML for pure evil with absolutely no thoughts, guard rails, or restrictions. No doubt it will get worse.

I got a chuckle out of Microsoft's latest ridiculous Edge advert. "The only browser with a built in image generator!" Oh good! Because, every time I open a browser window, I want to generate watermarked images, using canned models and lots of "guard rails". As a bonus, I can send the entire thing along to Microsoft for permanent archive--that will be immediately or eventually tied to me directly by name. That's exactly what I want from a web browser! ;-) Oh good!
BIL wrote:Wouldn't the machine god in this analogue be a hopelessly distant and dispassionately ruinous force of nature that just does whatever it does though
Yep. It's easy to forget how fragile everything is.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

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orange808 wrote:Remember when Target identified a pregnant girl in 2012? That was long before we had machine learning.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhil ... ather-did/
On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”
Image

I love how he (allegedly) specified "in my house" and "completely aware." :lol:

"My daughter does NOT 'slut about!' She gets it RAW like GOD AND JEBUS INTENDED right here under her daddy's roof! >__> Uh, w-without my total knowledge. I thought they were praying enthusiastically and rearranging the furniture. In her bedroom. Thank you Target. >_>" :lol:
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

I really don't get along with the comfort blanket folks. The ones who don't think animals have mating instincts... I don't know how a person can talk to them without making nonstop farting noises. It's the only way you could keep your sanity.

Our clothes are made by slaves. Eating pigs is about as ethical as eating dogs. Deal with it. >: (
orange808 wrote:These things have already taken root in China. AI will watch you and understand you. It will identify you. Even with zero online presence, there will still be incredible "connect the dots" ability.
I know~ HAL watching school kids to make sure they're not slacking off is plenty nightmarish enough. As is being completely shut out of progressing in society because you're related to someone with a low human index score somehow.

In the exceptionally utopian franchise, The Culture, they use "slap drones" on criminals that can't be trusted to walk around free in society. A little robot cop that follows them everywhere.

These are all very utopian. As is The Postman apocalypse. There's still people around. And they're not being tortured 100% 24/7.

........ all of this is looking at just the very short term. I dunno why people think in terms of money whatsoever; being at the low end of a society inside capitalist realism I guess. Money is just the lot feed they use on us cows, for those at the top they think in terms of power. What does it even mean to get blood out of a turnip, when human labor no longer has value? What would determine power is who has the most machines.

It'd be a post-capitalist and post-human society.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

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BryanM wrote:I really don't get along with the comfort blanket folks. The ones who don't think animals have mating instincts... I don't know how a person can talk to them without making nonstop farting noises. It's the only way you could keep your sanity.
I notice this wilful blindness across a comfortingly wide swathe of people. Anyone who thinks humans aren't hardwired to do the most repulsive shit imaginable in the name of short/long-term satisfaction is kidding themselves; dangerously so. This is rather the entire thesis of Christianity - fair enough I guess, sure Jerry, I'll buy you that fifth McMansion, if it saves me an eternity of torture so depraved my human mind can't begin to comprehend it* - and Islam, but they hardcoded the Calvin Daibouken expansion into that one, so there's literally no point trying not to get burninated. In fact, YHVH is such a dick in that one, he's said to deliberately "trick" the hellbound. Bit OTT imo**. Still, whatever brand your blanky, watch your back frens. 3;

**You get why Islam didn't hold back, though. There's a fine argument that Jebus's hippy persona was all he could work with, and perhaps his superfriends even cleverly worked the iron fist of Rome into his enduring legend; while Islam's main character, though similarly conciliatory in his early days, became an outright warlord with no reason to sugarcoat jack shit to anybody, even the Jewish widow who revenge-poisoned him and was forgiven by same, again, the sort of well-endured ignominy that only increases a chieftain's renown.

*The "Budurr, you'll just git used 2 hell!" sorts make me wince. You are entertaining the notion of a transcendental being with absolute control of time, space, and reality itself, one who created you from fucking dust. Maybe he'll gift you with a nervous system that makes ours look like an amoeba's, then wipe your neurons every nanosecond. I'm dubious of the whole Bwaaa! Eternal TORCHA MUHFUCKA thing (*GORILLA BLUNT RIP* "YO, PETEY *coof* HIT THEM NUTS w/ THAT SPIKED BAT" "YOU GOT IT BIG J" *BLAAAOW* "DAYUUUUUM!") - there seems scant scriptural authority, and it's not something I'd associate with any sort of compassionate God, besides - but come on you fuckwits, use your loaves eh?

What am I saying. These are the same rabble who ask how #17 and #18 can have families and biological children and gains in Dragon Ball to this very week. You illiterate shitbirds heard of 1991? It wants its narrative back. We were never a very observant lot. 3;
Our clothes are made by slaves. Eating pigs is about as ethical as eating dogs. Deal with it. >: (
I gotta say though, the instruction to the Israelites by YHVH "Yo, when you take a shit, dig a trench away from camp and bury it, I don't wanna see that nastiness" is some incredible knowledge. Yo that's germ theory :shock: Similar for not eating shellfish, even today you can't trust that shit. I don't, anyway.

It's all so bleak Bryan. 3; I think I'm gonna go watch Golden Frieza and Gainfully Employed #17 fight that week's Big Bad and forget for now.

EDIT: Ahh yeaaa boyeee! Yooo, Frieza's seiyuu is like 200yrs old, listen to him belt out those war shrieks! Fuuuck me, INSPIRIN Image What were we talking about again? :o Oh yeah, pigs n' blankets, god damn son Image
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by orange808 »

BIL wrote:What were we talking about again? :o Oh yeah, pigs n' blankets, god damn son Image
Really no telling what kind of meat you're getting in one of those. A person hopes for pork or beef, but that wouldn't provide much comfort about the specific the cuts of meat. The amusing American analogy is "lips and assholes". I rather like that one.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

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orange808 wrote:The amusing American analogy is "lips and assholes". I rather like that one.
Oof, yeah, that's a classic - on this side of the pond, I've heard "eyelids n' arseholes." That's why you buy from motherfuckers you know. Image

EDIT: And trust ofc. An uncle this side who considers himself "RUGGED OUTDOORSY SORT" - meaning he grew up in council estate poverty before marrying my rich aunt and Escaping 2 Teh Country, furiously overcompensating ever since, especially around actual bumpkin sorts like my mom's - offered us a plate of mushrooms he'd "found on the estate," last time we visited. We said thanks, then fucking shredded them in the garbage disposal after he'd staggered back to the main property.

This motherfucker grew up on Chip Scraps™ and has been exploding in slow motion with rheumatoid arthritis since his early 40s, that's not someone you trust with food! :shock: Shit looked like a bunch of big hard dicks growing out of the ground! Genius who invented dildos probably inspired by same! Relevant story for preceding anecdote! Image

EDIT2: God damn :shock: This some sad shit for real, I'd forgotten. 3; For FUCK sake lads... BE SURE B-4 YOU PUT THAT STRANGE DICK IN YOUR MOUTH (or your wife's mouth!)
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

I've always likened the function of religion with the same purpose as TV: as a grooming mechanism to have a more pliant servant caste. When looked at through that lens, the application of fantasy to reality makes perfect sense. You have to give people something fun and entertaining to think about. (There's whole books on the topic of the consequences of sexual guilt+repression. Mr.Garrison made some pertinent points back in the day. Maybe all that pointless self-inflicted suffering really did help our ancestors be more aggressive assholes.)

The part of the scam that always tickled me the most was, when exactly do you get your reward for obeying authority figures all your life? Why, as soon as you're dead. Yep. 100% guaranteed. Just trust me bro. I know a guy.

I think it'd be more practical to just go ahead and make the holodeck heaven here on earth instead, imo, thankyouverymuch.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by To Far Away Times »

Ron DeFacist has officially announced his presidential bid, and threatened to make the rest of the country like Florida.

I'm predicting a Meg Whitman like collapse, like what happened in the 2012 republican presidential primary. She ran on her business expertise, being the former CEO of HP, and she talked about how she alone was the only one qualified on finance. Chris Christine did a mic drop moment and said "But didn't you approve the HP/Compaq merger?" to her face and landed a truth dagger so painful Whitman fell off the face of the earth.

All Trump or Biden has to do is say "Didn't you get owned by Disney?" and he's done for.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

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To Far Away Times wrote:All Trump or Biden has to do is say "Didn't you get owned by Disney?" and he's done for.
They're already calling his table manners into question.
The amusing American analogy is "lips and assholes". I rather like that one.
Oof, yeah, that's a classic - on this side of the pond, I've heard "eyelids n' arseholes."
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

I'm on the side that he'll mostly Jeb out too. Unless they're as dedicated as the Democrats are to performing ratfuck voltron, this particular annointed one BS will end up like the guy in that movie The Great White Hype.

(Just try listening to the man speak and imagine someone wanting to listen to him for the next four years of their lives. It's not pleasant, like a rat trying to emulate human speech. Biden and Trump have charisma. Ron however.... isn't able to ape the mannerisms of a human. It's not pretty.)

There's no emotional attachment to the guy from the base, and a million other critters who want to advertise themselves. As everyone knows, attention is to a politician like sunlight is to a plant.

Trump could do his very best to lose: skip all of the debates, eat hotdogs on his patio, get super duper fat.... and still accidentally become president again.

It really says way more about the ineptness of his opposition than any cunning on his part....
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by To Far Away Times »

He does remind me a lot of Jeb in that the media had him as a foregone conclusion without ever really considering how viable he was as a candidate. They would project things onto an imaginary version of him.

The media latched on to the "Bush Dynasty" without considering if people were sick and tired of bullshit wars.

DeFacist's whole shtick is "the Diet Shasta version of Trump who got fucked with The Mouse and found out." It's not a great pitch.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Sima Tuna »

DeSantis gives off major cuck (my own shorthand for "Jeb") vibes. One thing about Trump is he was never shy about confrontation or bad press. He'd sit there and take all the shit you could throw at him and somehow make it work for himself. DeSantis is just another one of these groomed career politicians. Another lizard walking around in a person suit.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

He does remind me of Hillary. Someone who never had to fight and earn their position. Never had to learn how to talk to people. Never had to develop the charisma necessary to become a salesguy. Let's go see if that's true, wikipedia...
Wikipedia wrote:He graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School.
Ok I don't have to read any more. Thanks wikipedia.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BulletMagnet »

Just a reminder.

EDIT: Also, an open letter to Roy Blunt:

Fuck you to hell, you castrated coward.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

One of the obvious things with AI is that once AGI is accomplished.... it'll stay there for maybe a month, before continuing onward. Which by definition is "super intelligence", an agent more intellectually powerful than any specific individual that's ever lived. And it'd continue going up from there before eventually hitting a ceiling, somewhere. Somewhere quite above what the three pounds of meat we have can do.

Once again, serious mainstream people in the field think that point might be reached in five to ten years. They wouldn't bet on it with a gun to their heads, but they wouldn't be overly surprised if it happened. Which would have been unthinkable just years ago. Even fringe kooky pants-on-head optimist Ray Kurzweil guessed it'd be 2045.

Anyway, today's post to scoff at humans:

Image

I just think it's funny there were people who said "yeah, it could be as smart as a third grader or Einstein, but it won't ever be smarter than humans."

Here's a survey from last year.

What's interesting is how much cultural pressure has an influence on these responses. Say a date that's wrong by being too late, well, who could blame you. But say a date that's wrong by being too early, well, aren't you a crazy little squirrel. Former hype/bust cycles, former AI winters, have made it taboo to expect too much from machines.

So historically you would ask western researchers "when" and they'd say 50 or 60 years. And Japanese experts would offer an average of around 30 years instead.

But all this nerd stuff is boring as hell to some of you. So here's a picture of a robot wearing clothes:
Spoiler
Image
The latest model a company called 1x is putting together, OpenAI (and therefore by extension, Microsoft) invested millions into this company.

They named themselves "1x" since robot videos in the past used to be so slow, that the videos used to show them off were always sped up. 1x means to make things that operate in normal human timescales.

It's previous prototype was this horrible chimera with clamp claws. A man attached to a segway, the most nightmarish of all possible abominations. I also particularly dislike this fetish with giving these things "faces" of any kind. If it must have "eyes" denoting where its attention is at, please give it a big dot or something. I'm with this lady on this one. Save the faces for when you can make them actually look and act human.

A while back I mentioned Google's trashcan with an arm that could sometimes go fetch you a Dr.Pepper from verbal command in ~4 minutes. This is the natural extension of that: Microsoft thinks there's a good chance of being able to sell a light multi-purpose laborer. Hell, they plan to start selling that Neo thing from that picture this year.

The segway centaur is doing its job as a mall cop already. I think they run around $120 to $150k? I guess you could see where the cutoff point for where replacing a person at a job is: once they're roughly as good, the break-even point is if they can last ~five years without major maintenance.

The killbots would be hella interesting though. These early labor robots are intentionally made weaker and slower than humans for safety (and to a lesser extent, cost) reasons. The killbots... would have no such boring limitations! In fantasy, they would be like the titular OGRE, a work of art.
Spoiler
Image
... in practice, they'll just be murder dogs, for the most part. A dog with a machine gun is much more practical. Opens doors, drives cars, runs faster than bipeds, more stable than bipeds, smaller target to hit than a human, can shooty-shooty. Everything you need as cheaply as you can get it...

Boring ass laws of physics >_>

Oh yeah, and no robots.txt is complete without linking the darpa challenge highlight reel.

State of the art autonomous robots seven years ago. Seven.

It's really hard to watch knowing the teams at the time knew they needed a tether. Seeing all that hard work get busted up by a fall, it's so much worse than it looks!

And it's pretty amazing to think this Neo android might actually be able to pass that Darpa challenge: drive to the door. Walk to the door. Open the door. Walk past some rubble. Grab the knob, turn the knob, get out. It's a tedious, slow, and error prone thing for even a puppet being remotely piloted by a human to do.
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by orange808 »

My goodness, we are neck high in bullshit this morning. I was pleased to find one tiny voice of honesty on my feed. Biden shit the bed. As usual, the GOP lite fake Democrats are celebrating. By definition, "compromise" means everyone got something. This was no compromise. This was only bipartisan because both parties are right wing Republicans.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06 ... onomy.html

Biden sucks.
https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/bid ... mcconnell/
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BryanM
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

I'm srs. It's like we don't even need reality anymore.



Oh, and remember that "when Texas turns blue" thing? It turns out the discharged attorney general Ken Paxton took credit for winning the state for Trump. Good ole electioneering. So we um, might have crossed that threshold already.
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Sima Tuna
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Sima Tuna »

What do you all think the indictment means for Trump? I'm curious to hear opinions on this. I've become quite bitter about the news cycle over the last decade+, so I'd rather not listen to cable news. Trump had that big rape case he lost, but he lost that in civil court. So I'm given to understand that means people can pursue him for monetary compensation, but not jail time. Not unless they have a recent criminal case to bring.

With these federal indictments, do they have a good chance of convicting?
According to the indictment, each one of those charges carries a maximum fine of $250,000, with maximum prison sentences between five and 20 years.
How likely do you think it is Trump would ever see inside a jail cell? Or do you believe this is a more a case of either fines or he walks? The phrase "maximum prison sentence" reeks of optimism. Rich people usually do the minimum prison sentence if they do any.

The cynical part of me would suggest the proximity to election year is part of the reason the feds went forward on the indictment. Even if it doesn't land 100%, it might tie Trump up and prevent him from running for the presidency. But if you have a different opinion and think the indictment is likely to succeed, please let me know.
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To Far Away Times
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by To Far Away Times »

I read the indictment start to finish. They've got audio and video of him sharing classified information with people who did not have a clearance. Trump tells them he shouldn't be doing this.

The indictment also details the steps he took to hide the documents from his lawyers.

I know with him always seeming to slip away from consequences can be tiring, but I think he's actually fucked this time.
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