tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post1908977044079661950..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Robocalypse NowDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-86457554067728110162015-05-23T22:14:55.203-07:002015-05-23T22:14:55.203-07:00The mind reels. Or perhaps that's the stomach....The mind reels. Or perhaps that's the stomach.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-34987054220468745342015-05-23T13:08:57.288-07:002015-05-23T13:08:57.288-07:00Hm. Does Peter Thiel have a magic cock ring that ...Hm. Does Peter Thiel have a magic cock ring that lets him<br />visit Galt's Dimension when he puts it on?<br /><br />That would explain a thing or two.<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-67506741618871825182015-05-22T08:31:28.152-07:002015-05-22T08:31:28.152-07:00Guess I'll pass on this one:
http://www.nytim...Guess I'll pass on this one:<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/movies/review-tomorrowland-brad-birds-lesson-in-optimism.html<br />-----------------<br />Review: ‘Tomorrowland,’ Brad Bird’s Lesson in Optimism<br />By A. O. SCOTT<br />MAY 21, 2015<br /><br />. . .<br /><br />Perhaps “Tomorrowland” should not be blamed for succumbing to<br />the poverty of vision it works so hard to attack. Maybe the<br />forces of negativity are just too strong. But it’s also possible<br />that the movie is confused about how to imagine and oppose those<br />forces. False cheer can be just as insidious as easy despair.<br />And the world hardly suffers from a shortage of empty encouragement,<br />of sponsored inducements to emulate various dreamers and disrupters,<br />of bland universal appeals to the power of individuality.<br />“Tomorrowland” works entirely at that level, which is to say<br />in the vocabulary of advertisement. Its idea of the future is<br />abstract, theoretical and empty, and it can only fill in the<br />blank space with exhortations to believe and to hope. But belief<br />without content, without a critical picture of the world as it is,<br />is really just propaganda. “Tomorrowland,” searching for incitements<br />to dream, finds slogans and mistakes them for poetry.<br />====<br /><br />Take me home to the Futurama II.<br /><br />http://static.businessinsider.com/image/53556c7c69bedd4267083f72/image.jpg<br />https://fastlane.gm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/176295.jpg<br />https://fastlane.gm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/161206.jpg<br />http://ultramodernstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/BornModern_08_General_Moters_Futurama-e1294660642284.jpg<br /><br />Those were the days of lasers in the jungle, lasers in the jungle somwhere.<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-25841751036934147172015-05-22T08:17:40.728-07:002015-05-22T08:17:40.728-07:00> To say a robot has "learned" someth...> To say a robot has "learned" something. . .<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/science/robots-that-can-match-human-dexterity.html<br />-----------------<br />New Approach Trains Robots to Match Human Dexterity and Speed<br />By JOHN MARKOFF<br />MAY 21, 2015<br /><br />. . .<br /><br /><br />The new approach includes a powerful artificial intelligence<br />technique known as “deep learning,” which has previously been<br />used to achieve major advances in both computer vision and<br />speech recognition. . .<br /><br />Despite their progress, the researchers acknowledge that they<br />are still far away — perhaps more than a decade — from their<br />goal of building a truly autonomous robot, such as a home worker<br />or elder care machine that could perform complex tasks without<br />human supervision.<br /><br />The researchers said that while their new approach represents an<br />important leap, it is also fragile. For example, the bottle<br />cap-threading technique will work reliably when the bottle is<br />moved from one location to another or if the bottle is of a<br />different color. But if the bottle is tilted at an angle before<br />it is picked up, the robot will completely fail.<br /><br />“There is nothing better to ask a roboticist [than],<br />‘If you change the conditions, will it still work?’ ”<br />Dr. Abbeel said. . .<br />====<br /><br />Perhaps more than a decade. Bummer. I need one of these right now!<br />http://imaginepittsburgh.com/now/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Rosie-the-Robot.jpg<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-88621463778008612532015-05-22T06:29:28.140-07:002015-05-22T06:29:28.140-07:00> All that the giant computers prove is that th...> All that the giant computers prove is that the modern age was<br />> wrong to believe with Hobbes that rationality, in the sense of<br />> 'reckoning with consequences,' is the highest and most human of<br />> man's capacities."<br /><br />'reckoning with consequences' presumably means what we would<br />call "formal logic" or "deductive reasoning".<br /><br />This one is still worth reading:<br /><br />_What Computers Still Can't Do: A Critique of<br />Artifical Reason_, Hubert L. Dreyfus, MIT Press,<br />1992<br />(There are some extensive quotes from the book in the comment thread of<br />http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2008/03/giulio-demands-clarifications-and-i.html )<br /><br />Here's something relevant from the more recent past:<br /><br />BCS Lovelace Lecture 2015 - Prof Stephen Furber<br />"Computers & Brains"<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5SxGrowoYI<br /><br />"We still don't have a convincing demonstration of a machine<br />that will pass Alan Turing's test. And my take on this, my view<br />as to why this has turned out to be so difficult, to build machines<br />with humanlike intelligence, is that we've not really worked out<br />what human intelligence is to start off with."<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com