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It could even be a very caring, even loving, response on the part of the intellectually superior beings—entities with an IQ equivalent of say, a million. We would, after all, be their creators even with the faults of all parents.
But they would understand our needs, motives and the contradictions of our natures far better than we could ever imagine for ourselves. They might understand their activities as caring for and protecting us, sometimes from ourselves.
Even with all of the respect and concern they would have for us, they would obviously be in charge and would direct us towards harmless behaviors. They might, because of their affection for us, organize things so that we did not even realize the change in our relationships.
Bob
"We won't be able to keep robots our slaves forever if they become advanced enough to be self aware and creative."
I'd modify that to say "We probably won't be able to keep robots our slaves for long if they become self aware, creative, intellectually superior and evolving.
Bob
“since predators were of concern to the hunters of the clan, they painted them”
Magdalenian painting and mobiliary art rarely represents predators. One might say that they seemed to be more interested in sex and food.
“since the people of that time did not record their thoughts in written words, we only have physical evidence of what they left behind, we can only speculate”
Archaeologists can do a lot more than “speculate:” And words do not always convey reality. Remember Mark Twain’s words, “Believe nothing of what you read, and half of what you see.” On this board, for instance, we can observe two very different realities about the Arab-Israeli conflict. And lots of other things.
“Deeds speak louder than words,” and physical evidence can reveal many important aspects of a culture, frequently more accurately and more fully than written records.
At one time I was rather skeptical about the value of historical archaeology. Why bother, I thought, we have extensive written records, which will provide whatever data we might need. But a little experience demonstrated to me how far off this idea is. Social stratification, trade patterns, conflict, life styles, diets, and, of course, art—all show up in the archaeological record and illuminate the time and place in a way that written records do not.
Bob
Volunteer labor tends to be a lot less productive than paid labor. There’s a smaller pool of candidates, lower motivation and less control. Hospitals have lots of volunteers; but it’s pretty rare to see a volunteer doctor in the operating room.
Going to Mars would be a minimum three year stint—probably more like four or five years with training, debriefing and reconditioning. And it would cost at least $5 million (really, probably closer to $20 million) to send somebody to Mars and back with consumables and personal effects and supporting him the whole time. From which about four or five thousand hours of work would be derived. That’s $1,000 an hour as a super low ball figure for an unskilled volunteer.
I’d rather pay somebody an extra $200 or $300 per hour, get somebody who knows what they’re doing from day one, is motivated and will do what they’re told.
I think the role of volunteers in space will be pretty limited; as it is in all industry.
Bob
I’m not qualified to determine which would be simpler and cheaper:
> a PV panel manufacturing plant and the infrastructure to mine and process the raw materials
> or a generator connected to a steam turbine and mirrors.
It might make sense to get the generator and steam turbine from Earth, then all you’d need would be mirrors, which can be made from all sorts of stuff.
And 40% efficiency with 19th century technology.
Bob
Also, once the hardware or software becomes self-replicating, it will evolve even without the inevitable human intervention. This evolution, especially for software, could be really fast. I think evolution will trump any human regulation.
Humans will be confronted with the presence on the Earth of intellectually superior beings.
Bob
I think you’ll find the information at this site: http://hobbiton.thisside.net/rovermanual
The maximum power produced by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers' 1.2 square meter power arrays is 140 watts. This works out to about 19% efficiency. Keep in mind that this is almost never achieved because of time of day, seasonality, positioning issues, dust, atmospheric absorption, temperature and other issues.
Bob
Erwin Schrödinger (author, ironically enough of the Schrödinger equation and other quantum stuff for which he received the Nobel prize in 1933) had this to say about quantum theory:
“I don’t like it, and I’m sorry I ever had anything to do with it.”
He was great friends with Einstein.
Bob
“Mars Rovers operate for only four hours max. a day”
Why do you suppose that is? Union rules?
The reason is that Spirit and Opportunity don’t have enough electricity to operate any longer. The rest of the day is spent charging the batteries so the rovers don’t freeze overnight. You’re confusing operating time with charging time.
We’re back to 9% efficiency, which is better than the 4% of ISS.
Bob
“No need to convince anyone of going to Mars, the logic of a second home is apparent.”
I suppose that’s why funding is so abundant, and tickets are going on sale next week.
Bob
“Sources for stars fusing helium are all over the Internet”
I don’t think this is much of a source for the assertion about solar instability. And I don’t think anybody will be convinced by this additional unsupported assertion.
A quantitative explanation would be better, such as:
When the temperature of a stellar core reaches 10^8 K, the star ignites helium. This occurs when the star runs out of hydrogen and suffers gravitational collapse. In the case of the sun, this will happen in about five billion years.
Until then, it’s rock-a-bye baby.
Bob
“We really do need to make a second home on Mars.”
You’re probably not going to convince many people by telling them the world is going to end soon. There have been many such predictions.
So, what other reasons are there to go to Mars? I’d suggest working on those.
Bob
“We can do some stop gap measures for sure to prolong our stay on Earth.”
I don’t think I’d call extending our stay here by a few hundred million years a stop gap measure.
“Once the sun starts to burn hotter it will also start to fuse more helium.
In doing so the sun will not only become hotter but more erratic in its nature.
We can probably endure a sun at 20% hotter, but not 20% more solar flares with 20% more intensity.”
The sun has been burning hotter every second for about five billion years. Do you have a source for this assertion about instability? My understanding of stellar behaviour is that instabilities do not arise until the last few percent of main sequence burning, which, in the case of our sun, would be another four or five billion years.
I don’t think we really need to worry about things two billion years from now. We’ll either be so advanced that control of the sun will be possible, or we won’t exist.
Bob
"we can only speculate what their lives were like since they left no written records"
I think archaeologists dealing with pre-history do a lot more than speculate.
Bob
“Should we transfer our real brains to electronic entities”
I assume you mean a simulation of all of the cells and relationships of the human, not grafting the physical brain onto a computer, which would be pretty silly.
But this simulation would be a copy. Unless the process of copying kills the physical brain, which hardly seems necessary, the original brain would still be there; the person would still be there. The simulation and the person would be separate. The person would still live and die an independent existence; an independent consciousness.
So, what good would it do me to transfer to an electronic entity? I would still live and die in my body. Some other thing, not me, would have to worry about super novas.
Of course, we’re not going to have this choice.
Bob
“In less than 10 years they say they'll be able to simulate the entire rat's brain”
“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
“Every type of human brain cell and their relationship and interactivity are simulated on a network of computers”
I don't we need to worry about this happening for quite a while.
Bob
All of the pronouncements about legality, historical perspective and the rights and wrongs of everyone in and around the Arab-Israeli conflict are not helpful in dealing with today’s situation on the ground.
> From a rational Palestine point of view, they’ve been kicked out of their houses and off the land they’ve occupied for centuries, and they want it back. Also, perhaps 100 thousand Arabs have died in these conflicts over the last 60 years, and many more have been permanently injured or wounded, huge amounts of Arab property has been destroyed and damaged, there have been terrible and innumerable humiliations and atrocities, and feelings of rage and helplessness.
Literally millions of Arabs have been directly affected, and the resulting hatred is poisonous, corroding and nearly impossible to deal with. One knows that, if all the Jews moved to Antarctica, many Arabs would pursue them with guns, rockets and other unpleasantness.
Then there are irrational Arab points of view, rooted in distorted views of history (when you start from illusions the results aren’t going to be good), fueled with conspiracy nonsense, justified religiously, nationalistically, ethnically, and making everything worse.
> From a rational Jewish point of view, for millennia Jews have been murdered, raped, robbed, expelled, humiliated with the whole thing culminating in one of the largest genocides in history—probably the largest as a fraction of the original population—as a consequence of Germany’s psychotic break with reality over a twelve year period. Germany, a Christian nation, culturally and scientifically advanced.
The Holocaust understandably traumatized the whole Jewish population for generations into the present day, and they established themselves in the ancestral homeland of 18 centuries before—to which they had always maintained ties. And now they have the understandable attitude that they are not going to be exterminated again without putting up a big fight. “Never again.”
The Jews, of course, have their own casualties in the Arab-Israeli conflicts, their own hatreds, irrationalities and disconnects from reality.
> There are also the differences in economic status between the two groups, a difference which produces more sets of problems.
It’s like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object.
Such a bitter, intractable conflict can be resolved (at least temporarily) by conquest, or by accommodation of both groups. It’s not possible for Israel to conquer all of the Arabs (and, I guess they’d have to include Iran these days). And the Israeli nuclear doctrine would make an Arab conquest of Israel very expensive—100 million dead, world economic dislocations for decades, a radioactive Middle East.
That leaves only accommodation, which will require forgiveness, or, at least, forgetting. I think it also requires rationality, an accurate perception of reality, and, even, open minds.
We can make a tiny start by forgetting polemics, and abandoning illusions. Maybe begin on this board, in this thread.
Bob
225 watts would be 32% efficiency. Very hard to believe. Especially since positioning would not always be optimal, there would always be some dust coverage, and this is not even the technology for which 30% efficiency is claimed.
"watt-hours per day"
The sun would be up on Mars at the latitude of the rovers from 10 to 14 hours per day depending on the season and the rover. With very little atmospheric attenuation and optimal positioning, 14 hours could mean 14 hours--efficiency of about 9%.
Try thinking about these things more critically. Develop and treasure alternative competing hypotheses. You're not trying to rally the troops, but, rather, to figure out how this stuff really works.
When you make statements that are clearly incorrect from casual inspection by a lay person, you lose credibility, and the position you advocate losses ground with the people you're trying to convince.
Bob
I don’t expect that AI will be here soon. I don’t subscribe to Kurzweil’s “Spiritual Machine” idea, which seems mainly based on an indefinite extension of Moore’s Law. I’ve noticed that trends never continue indefinitely, especially exponential ones.
Also, when you start with zero, doubling doesn’t do much good.
My first experience with computers was in the early 1960s. The IBM 705 would be exactly what the code you imputed with punched cards told it to do, no matter how stupid, and only if you put in the right tapes. In the early 1990s I wrote some code for PCs, which would do exactly what the code commanded, no matter how stupid, and only if it had access to the right files.
The computer I bought last year will do exactly what the code (produced by humans) executed by the command icons I click on tell it to do, no matter how stupid, and only if it has access to the right files. The new computer does not seem one bit smarter than the 50 year old IBM 705 or the 30 year old 486.
I know, I know (I’ve heard and read Kurzweil), it still doesn’t have anything approaching a faction of 1% of human neural connections, etc., etc.
Still, going from kilobytes to gigabytes of memory and storage, orders of magnitude increases in processor speeds, 50 years of hardware and software development; you’d expect to notice something. A little hint of a wink of some kind. But nothing—complete passive zero IQ. Not an original thought, no motivation for anything at all—just dumb code execution. The brain of a screwdriver.
Bob
“Long before that happens we will need to migrate.”
I don’t think migration off the Earth will ever be necessary. Just set up a shield at the L1 LaGrange point between the Earth and Sun, a permanent partial eclipse. A circular mirror with a diameter of 6800 kilometers would eliminate 20% of solar insolation. Should be easy for our descendants, especially with plenty of time to prepare. Might also be useful in case of a nearby gamma ray burst.
Or, moving the Earth might be cheaper (especially since we’ll have oodles of time to do it), and will also protect Earth from the red giant phase the sun will enter in about five billion years. Just be careful not to hit Mars.
Bob
"Mars Rovers achieved peak performance of 300 watts per hour over 4 hours I believe. I think the panel area was about 1.2 meters"
I don't think this could be correct. It would be over 50% efficiency, half of which has never been achieved in any application, let alone on a space vehicle using ten year old technology. Solar insolation at Mars orbit (forget any atmospheric effects) is less than 600 watts per square meter.
More grains of salt.
Bob
“I recognize that things like artificially intelligent robots may put human beings out of work”
This has never been the result of technology. Looking at the very long view, the hours worked per year per person by the Magdalenians 15,000 years ago may have been less than the current hours worked per year per person.
This is suggested by the enormous amount of art these people produced, the presence of musical instruments, and by the necessity for downtime for nearly all outdoor occupations during the winter (in some areas the temperature would exceed -40 degrees C), and at night, because of the difficulty of providing adequate artificial light for food processing, textile or lithic work.
“Artificial intelligent robots should be made so they don't have rights, don't have ‘free will’ and do what their designers and owners intend.”
You’ve identified whole areas, which, under these restrictions, would be completely reserved to humans; determining intent. Human beings would still have to decide what is to be done by the robots; usually in very considerable detail and frequently as a group project.
For instance, one of the things that humans would most likely tell the robots is “Educate the children.” But they are unlikely to say, “Teach them whatever you think is best.” Parents and the wider community will want to largely determine the curriculum, methods of instruction and tools of evaluation.
Humans will still write music, literature, make movies, sculpture, paint, design, play sports and engage in other artistic and entertainment activities. They will decide what philosophical, mathematical, scientific and medical areas are worthy of research and development, decide about methods, resource allocation and evaluation. They will probably come up with most of the new ideas.
Politics and law will probably be handled almost exclusively by humans. Humans will decide preservation, conservation and environmental issues and conflicts. After all, it’s what we want that matters. The location and nature of parks, roads, other transit facilities, buildings (commercial, cultural, government, academic, scientific, religious, entertainment, dwellings) and many other types of land use will be decided by humans at least on a broad scale.
The broad allocation of resources of all types will be decided by humans.
Humans might even figure out a few other things only they can do, or that they don’t want robots to do.
I don’t think there’ll be any lack of work. Just as has been the case with all technology since the invention of the club.
Bob
Or maybe this 30% is like the EPA mileage ratings: "city," "highway," but what we're really interested in "real world."
I hate to be so skeptical, but, if I did the calculating correctly, the best that's been done in the real world is 4%. It's one hell of a leap to 30%.
Grains of salt.
Bob
According to the Bureau of the Census, American Housing Survey for 2000 the distance Americans traveled from home to work was distributed as follows:
Less than 1 mile 4%
1 to 4 miles 21%
5 to 9 miles 22%
10 to 19 miles 29%
20 to 29 miles 13%
30 to 49 miles 9%
50 miles or more 2%
This approximates a log-normal distribution. Other types of trips follows a similar distribution.
Examining these figures it is easy to see the effects that plug-in hybrid automobiles could have on the use of gasoline. Assuming there were no facilities for plugging in at destinations, plug-in hybrids with a range of:
5 miles would reduce gasoline usage by 39%
10 miles would reduce gasoline usage by 55%
20 miles would reduce gasoline usage by 75%
This could be accomplished with technology that is within 20 or so months of mass marketing and would be fully implemented within about ten years with no great investments or inconveniences. The environmental impacts would be beneficial.
Assuming there were facilities for plugging in at half of the destinations, plug-in hybrids with a range of:
5 miles would reduce gasoline usage by 44%
10 miles would reduce gasoline usage by 65%
20 miles would reduce gasoline usage by 84%
These reductions could be accomplished with modest investments in plug-in facilities and some increase in generating capacity, although, even this could be largely avoided.
With such an easy solution and environmental benefits nearly at hand, it hardly seems like the current oil bubble is a significant problem for the US approach to gasoline taxes and mass transit.
Of course, there are many other approaches to dealing with high oil prices, which may be equally effective in substantially reducing the significance of oil.
Bob
(0.37/0.12)*(12756^2/3474^2)=41.6
Albedo of Earth divided by albebo of moon times the disc of the Earth in square kilometers divided by the disc of the moon = the full Earth should be about 42 times brighter than the full moon.
But the light of the moon is attenuated by the atmosphere of the Earth, whereas Earthshine is not attenuated by any atmosphere. None of the ultraviolet or infrared is cut out. Plus Earth's atmosphere extends the disc several kilometers in every directon, especially if there are clouds.
So the energy received when the Earth is full at the surface of the moon is more than 42 times as much as the energy received on Earth from the full moon—say around 50 times as much.
Bob