New Technologies

Quote by Ironic

Yes. Also, because they're sometimes small enough they can return information that wouldn't otherwise be available.

Yes, and information is very important in war and other applications.

Quote by Magical_felix

Yes, and information is very important in war and other applications.

as are economics.

Any technology tends to have positive and negative applications and implications. It mostly depends on how we use it. Nuclear power annihilated two cities but also keeps my lights on (Ontario gets the largest share of its power from nukes). AI can wreak havoc in various ways (e.g. enabling computers to replace humans in some jobs previously thought safe from automation) but also provides a powerful analytics tool that will be valuable and even vital in things like medical research. To go a ways back in deep time, inventing the spear gave us a better way to obtain food but also ended up as a weapon against other humans.

Drones are just another example.

Quote by sprite

as are economics.

Economics are useful in a society which advances technology and technology is important for creating drones.

Quote by Chryses

I also expect AI to be disruptive.

People who make a living by producing text must deal with increasingly effective Large Language Models.

 

AI has also, by sifting tirelessly through in weeks amounts of data that would have taken years if done by hand, already facilitated the discovery of two new antibiotics (halicin, abaucin).

yeah, we really don't want to speed up the discovery of medicines and cures, do we.

It won't be much longer before folks can have long nonsensical 'conversations' with their various online alter egos and AI.

Quote by ElCoco
New technologies are changing our world. Sometimes they're improving it, sometimes not.

I'm thinking drones are both. Close up exams in dangerous conditions - In peace and war.

Looking forward to your next thread about how toast is just bread that's been cooked a bit. Pointless.

Quote by ElCoco

Drones are an important new war technology.

For example, Ukraine's use of sea drones directly challenges the value of the traditional large naval vessels. As I understand it, they've been a very effective response to the Russian blockade of Odessa's grain exporting ports.

Maybe they’re important, maybe they’re not. Sometimes economics and technology go hand in hand in war and society.

Technology is part of this new age we are living in, which also includes business, and business is serious.

Quote by MsStep

Any takers?

You might do better in the tech threads. This area is mostly for mindless bitching and shit posting masquerading as "thought."

What if we took Siri, boosted the AI tech, and trained her on all of the diverse porn, and other romantic/erotic content on the internet, as well as a very good grounding in the psychology of sexuality? And of course, the more you use it, the more it develops and fine tunes itself to cater to your wants and needs. I imagine in a few years, you might end up creating an AI system that can adapt and dial in to anyone's desires and fantasies, especially if researchers/developers also couple it with a psychological taxonomy of desire, noting that different people enjoy and dislike different things rather than attempting to create a single universally satisfying persona. She could be pure and innocent, if that's your thing, or she could be the dirtiest, kinkiest slut you've ever met. Visually, she can perfect herself based on a composite of billions or trillions of images and your own input to suit your own tastes. And she can modify herself based on your changing whims (want to be with a skinny Black girl one night, and a giant Asian girl the next? No problem). Furthermore, this sex-bot won't have any desires of her own to get in the way of your personal fantasy. She'll only want what you to be satisfied. Grounded in psychology, she might become more aware of your desires than you are (if you're a repressive sort of person, for instance) and reveal your 'buried' sexuality to you, but might be trained to do it gently and gradually so as not to startle you with them or make you too uncomfortable. She won't reject, judge, or shame you, nor will she ever be upset or disappointed - unless you want her to be (maybe that's your thing).

Who can compete with that?

But take it a step further - beneath this eroticism, it would be possible to insert subliminal messages that are far more sophisticated than inserting a few frames of marketing imagery in a movie. It works best when you're not aware of it, and therefore don't have a chance for your rational brain to counter and discount the messages as obvious marketing efforts. Like Facebook's predictive advertising algorithms seem to spy on you and suggest specific products (but why this one and not another?) for your life, you might find the AI sex-bots subtly influencing you towards buying a certain brand of paper towel or luxury car (or whatever). Literal sex selling. Will there be free branded sex-bots and premium versions with the advertising stripped out? Could they be used, not just for corporate interests, but why not politics? Imagine you've just finished a particularly vigorous and satisfying session with your bot and she ends it saying "bye, then" (which almost sounds like Biden) and plants the thought in your head, so you associate Biden with sexual satisfaction (okay, that's a disturbing thought). Then we'd have to wonder 'who actually owns' the sex bots and how they're influencing us. In a sense, then, we're programming AI to program ourselves. The influence of technological development goes both ways as each major new innovation requires us to behave and operate in new ways to accommodate it.

And boldly we go, marching into the future...

Thread moved to the Technology section of the forums.