Humans Are Not Able To Manage The Technology They Create

Human beings are very clever, with our big brains we are able to engineer virtually anything.

What human beings are not good at is the long term view. We have no clue about the ramifications of unleashing technology into our world.

There are many, many examples. Just a few that come to mind:

- Information technology: Like you are using to read this. It will enslave us, no doubt, but still we deployed it with no thought for the future. Why?
- Fossil fuels: Harvesting them increased the rate of "progress" and "prosperity" but at what cost?

The list goes on and on.

Remember this?

"We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
back to the garden"

No, I'm not anti technology. But I do understand that it will manage us, not the other way around.

 

Some areas that are managed quite well ( from managements point of view )are assembly lines where humans have been displaced by robots. Auto industry for example. More seriously would be any business/military/medical areas where computers do the controlling--and that has happened and continues to spread. It was said that 45% of jobs are at risk of being taken over by robots in the near future. (60 minutes, I think.) But perhaps you're referring to another scenario?

 

there are many things a machine can do far better than humans and with less fuss. soon the only thing left for humans to do is to program the machines, which is one area where we still have them beat.

 

I think we are capable. It's just a matter of taking the time to learn what there is to know about a given technology. I don't even use half of what my xbox can do, but that's partly because I don't want to relocate everything to xbox. I don't even know what it does to tell you the truth, besides run video games and play dvd and bluray.

 

It's okay, we can handle it...

 

If there is some sophisticated self-replicating von neumann machines in the future, we may not even have that.


In response to the op, I think there is a kind of ebb and flow with technology, knowledge and how it is maintained. It does seem to me, that the increased connectivity and availability to information brought on by technology has led to some significant positive social changes, that likely would not have occurred otherwise. I am kind of leery about how jobs may be and are being affected for some of the reasons mentioned by scratcho. It does seem that there will come a head at some point where reform in what work is valued will have to change or maybe the way how jobs are structured.

 

Engineering is as much an art, as it is a science. Of course there are lots of hard math problems involved in engineering, the machines have that covered; they can do math problems quite easily. Actual engineering and design though requires being goal oriented, and creativity with purpose. There are an infinite number of possible computer programs that would be "correct", but not all "correct" programs fit the task at hand. Machines may one day be conscious, or may even have a form of conscious awareness now and we don't realize it. Chances are machines will never be conscious in the same way we are, if only because we are so different. "Von Neumann" machines are good at crunching numbers and running algorithms, human brains excel at creativity, and adaptation. The closest any turing machine can come to this is to emulate it.

I read that it took the world's most powerful supercomputer (at the time) 40 minutes to simulate just 1% of the brain activity that occurs in one second .. but this really isn't saying much. What level of detail is simulated, and how much detail is really necessary for the simulation to be "functionally equivalent". I do believe they simulated individual neurons and synapses which takes a lot of computing power, BUT this still isn't saying much. For example, the CPU in an SNES console runs at about 4MHz, yet to run a truly accurate emulator of that console requires a machine running at 1GHz or more without sacrificing timing accuracy. Why? Because the hardware architecture of the SNES is so different from the hardware of a PC ... so all this has to be emulated in software. Most of computational resources go toward this emulation, rather than the actual game logic and algorithms which again, only required a 4Mhz CPU in the SNES. They call this emulation and not simulation because it looks, and functions the same externally but isn't required to be an exact simulation of the hardware. If we were to actually simulate an SNES, that would mean simulating all the transistors and components in the SNES .. not just the aspects that are externally visible to software like the instruction set, registers and memory addresses. And if we did that I'm sure that this too, would require something like a supercomputer just to simulate a 1990's game console. But it's not really necessary, because we know how software and hardware works and what needs to be simulated and what doesn't in order to yield something functionally equivalent; we just don't know the same about the brain and human consciousness yet.

Does this mean that the SNES from the 90's is "more powerful" than the supercomputer simulating one, down the the logic gates and transistors that make up it's CPU .. nah, it's like comparing apple's and oranges, it takes a non-trivial amount of computing power to simulate a relatively trivial electrical circuit; and comparing any type of Turing machine to biological brains is like comparing apples to bananas.

Neural networks do seem promising though, and I mean ones implemented in hardware .. not a software simulation. The simulations are very useful to learn and study these things, but they are anything but efficient. I doubt these will ever replace turing machines though; they will have their own applications, possibly replacing things once thought only humans could do.

 

But it's okay because I can get Netflix on my tablet.

 

ever thought about how much computing power it takes to produce and broadcast commercials, and how much coal is burned to produce the electricity required to do all this, just so that 15 minutes of commercials per hour can be displayed. eliminate the commercials and you increase the "efficiency" of television by that much. I don't think that technology is bad, but some ideologies are.

 

Nope not one thought.

And I was joking anyway, basically having a go at the development of tablets etc. I read they're extremely polluting the atmosphere while making the screens we take for granted on such devices and televisions. So I was taking the unthoughtful consumer approach of "oh well it's okay as long as I get to watch my tv programs".

 

the machines are awakening ...

 

Humanity is pretty much a time bomb, might as well have as much fun as possible before we die, no?

 

That's how I live.

 

It's too late to worry about managing technology now when it's already on it's way to controlling us. I'm glad I wont be around when world war 3 kicks off and all this wonderful technology we have created finally breaks. Not many people seem to realise how incredibly fragile all this new technology is, and that all it would take to destroy it would be a few nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles with multiple warheads detonating high up in the upper stratosphere. The electromagnetic pulse from these detonations would fry any computer chips within their range many many miles, thus rendering all computerised technology redundant. All modern motor vehicles now have on board computer systems for engine management and so on, so you can kiss goodbye to your transport systems. Then of course we have all this wonderful fragile technology installed in all our electronic appliances to, also adding to the same problem as with motor vehicles. All mobile phone systems will also be destroyed to, thus rendering all communications redundant just like everything else. So if you have a small radio transceiver lurking around for emergency communications, make sure you stick it in the microwave oven or a metal box when war kicks off, because that will be the only way to protect such modern electronic devices and you will certainly need it. Madness sheer madness all this reliance on such a fragile technology!

 

Big problems: The people who create new technology are not the people who manage its use. Also, inventors tend to be extreme optimists. They can only see the potential good in everything. Truth is, everything that empowers people is going to be used both for good and evil.

 

Well you can guarantee for sure that the military will be developing AI killing robots in the not too distant future, they will certainly make for formidable soldiers. I think this is how AI will start it's early development, put all those bad human sadistic killing emotions into a robot and make it a psychopath and you have a first class killing machine. It will make a perfect suicide bomber, you could even strap a small atom bomb to it as it will certainly be much stronger than a human.

 

AI started a long time ago though.
Now we just need to harness its ability to make the Terminator series a reality. Our only way at pure survival is to get off this planet somewhere, sometime a long long way away. We aren't going to do this by neglecting technological advancements.
I think the worst thing technology does for humans is simply take away the jobs for us. Like these 3D printers. That'd be millions of trades people out of work etc. Self serve counters take away the jobs for the young teens looking to get into the work force.
I like technology for shit we actually need to accomplish or can help us with that. iPhones that show up on my arm or 3D vision and virtual reality. All fluff to me.

 

It's a race to the finish. Who will win, human ingenuity or human stupidity? I don't think technology is bad. I think we need to utilize it more to clean up the planet. Seriously, you could employ a lot of people just to clean this place up and make it safe. Right now it's very unsafe, thank you nuclear power. Nuclear power is the moron of team technology, just making the brash assumption that we're the good guys, it's cool to be good, and therefore we're going to be all right. Technology is used to kill a lot, but when you're the good guys you can justify that. Eventually you'll just have everyone so outmatched that you won't need to do it anymore. Then you can get around to saving the planet...if it's still around. I don't think I'm exaggerating the grave danger we're in. One of these days there may be no tomorrow.

 

Couldn't agree more our stupidity is staring us smack bang in the face and we still continue to ignore the danger we are all in with our misuse of technology and the planet. Well one things for sure, when it all eventually self destructs any survivors that are left will have to go back to basics and that wont be very pleasant.

 

Geez, talk about paranoia.

some of you folks really should stop obsessing over silly shit and go out and enjoy your life, you only get one, as far as we know at this point.

Worrying about how or when technology will do us in and related stuff is silly.
If you want to obsess over some global catastrophe, at least stick within the realm of reality and what is most probable.

the two most probable scenarios to fuck humanity up real good are;

1) an MCE that hits the planet directly on with full force. That would essentially fry most electronics on and around the planet and hurl us backwards technologically 150 years or so.
We have actually had more than a few near misses over the last decade that could have done some significant damage had they not been glancing blows.

2) a viral pandemic.
as we have developed more hygienic practices and more of the populace has become urban as opposed to rural childrens immune systems are not being challenged enough early on and that has been clearly linked to the explosion of childhood allergies in the last 20-30 years. Combine a couple of generations with immune systems that are not as robust as possible, the rapidity and ease of global travel, and the fucked infra-structure around most of the globe to deal with such issues, and you have a disaster just waiting to happen.
I imagine if smallpox were to get back into the wild either accidentally or intentionally, it would wreak global havoc before it was even realized what was going on because it would have easily spread around the world before symptoms show to a point for diagnosis. Most folks would go about their normal routines for 3-5 days thinking they had a cold or flu.
Considering there hasn't been any vaccinations for it since the early '70's means the larger portion of the population is vulnerable, nor are there adequate stores of vaccine currently, so most folks would be fucked.

The threat of smallpox getting back into circulation is far scarier than robots taking over the world and considerably much more likely to happen.




my money is on the pandemic.

 

what would even be worse is if rabies became contagious through casual contact or airborne, then it would be a fucking zombie Apocalypse for sure...:yikes: