If the baby can survive outside the womb is abortion "murder"?

[excreationist]

If that conversation didn't involve an AI would you consider the woman to be friendly?

I didn’t listen to the conversation. I don’t need to. AI is not friendly. It is not unfriendly. It has no interior life, no thoughts, no intentions, nothing.

You weren't able to watch a 1 minute video? I'd consider the voice to be perhaps the friendliest voice I've ever heard. I meant that the AI appears to be friendly rather than genuinely experiencing that emotion, etc.

Are you proposing that old people will be taken care of by AI robots who they think are people, because the care recipients won’t be told they are being taken care of by mindless bots?

I'm just saying those AIs are very lifelike. Note that some guys seem somewhat happy with AI "girlfriends".

 

[excreationist]

Well an AI that sounds like a woman. BTW apparently some humans identify as cats, etc.

Identifying as cats doesn't make them cats.

Yeah though apparently some schools tolerate it.

School allows child ‘with species dysphoria’ to identify as an animal

Aberdeen city council says at least one pupil has the condition following reports that children were claiming to be wolves and cats

www.thetimes.com

Though it isn't really relevant at all (but I thought it was interesting)

You seem dangerously prone to accepting replicas as reality. That's not healthy.
Tom

I think they are incapable of suffering, etc, so I don't really worry about their well-being...

 

[TomC]

I think they are incapable of suffering, etc, so I don't really worry about their well-being...

I'm talking about your well being.
Tom

 

[pood]

If that conversation didn't involve an AI would you consider the woman to be friendly?

I didn’t listen to the conversation. I don’t need to. AI is not friendly. It is not unfriendly. It has no interior life, no thoughts, no intentions, nothing.

You weren't able to watch a 1 minute video?

I don’t want to watch it, because it’s irrelevant. No matter how friendly an AI sounds, it’s not friendly. It’s not unfriendly. It’s not anything at all.

I'd consider the voice to be perhaps the friendliest voice I've ever heard. I meant that the AI appears to be friendly rather than genuinely experiencing that emotion, etc.

Right. It doesn’t genuinely experience the emotion. So why would you want to be cared for, or even hang around with, a mindless bot? Just because of the way it sounds?

Are you proposing that old people will be taken care of by AI robots who they think are people, because the care recipients won’t be told they are being taken care of by mindless bots?

I'm just saying those AIs are very lifelike. Note that some guys seem somewhat happy with AI "girlfriends".

Good for them, I guess. I’ll go with the old song: Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.

 

[excreationist]

I think they are incapable of suffering, etc, so I don't really worry about their well-being...

I'm talking about your well being.
Tom

Well AIs are currently fairly limited in their conversations so I don't feel a connection towards them as much as my wife, etc.

 

[bilby]

Besides, why would anyone think that old people would WANT to be looked after by robots?

Haven't you read any 1950s SciFi? When today's old people were young people, they were dreaming of living in spaceships, with robot butlers who could bring you your pipe or cigarettes, and perhaps even help the womenfolk with the cleaning and cooking.

 

[bilby]

I a going to hazard the guess that the vast majority of old people are never going to want to be cared for by robots, no matter how life-like or “friendly” they are.

Resistance is futile. They will be assimilated.

 

[TomC]

Besides, why would anyone think that old people would WANT to be looked after by robots?

Haven't you read any 1950s SciFi? When today's old people were young people, they were dreaming of living in spaceships, with robot butlers who could bring you your pipe or cigarettes, and perhaps even help the womenfolk with the cleaning and cooking.

Y'know
You're talking about me?

I was one of those sci-fi geeks who saw 2001: A Space Odyssey as a possibility.
But 2001 was far off in the future.

It was like summer vacation, when you're stuck in class in February. A distant utopia.
Tom

 

[excreationist]

You weren't able to watch a 1 minute video?

I don’t want to watch it, because it’s irrelevant. No matter how friendly an AI sounds, it’s not friendly. It’s not unfriendly. It’s not anything at all.

The 1 minute video demonstrates what I mean by friendly behaviour (a cartoon can also have friendly behaviour). Its extremely realistic laughter is even very friendly sounding.

I'd consider the voice to be perhaps the friendliest voice I've ever heard. I meant that the AI appears to be friendly rather than genuinely experiencing that emotion, etc.

Right. It doesn’t genuinely experience the emotion. So why would you want to be cared for, or even hang around with, a mindless bot? Just because of the way it sounds?

Well old people can get lonely and the video shows the AI is very interesting and humorous (there is also a video with it singing silly made up songs). It can also recognise that the man's hair is messy and that he put on a silly hat. It doesn't experience the emotion but I think it is better than nothing. They could have a robot that is devoted to them 24/7 since the robots are said to be less than $20,000 each.

 

[pood]

You weren't able to watch a 1 minute video?

I don’t want to watch it, because it’s irrelevant. No matter how friendly an AI sounds, it’s not friendly. It’s not unfriendly. It’s not anything at all.

The 1 minute video demonstrates what I mean by friendly behaviour (a cartoon can also have friendly behaviour). Its extremely realistic laughter is even very friendly sounding.

But’s it’s not friendly.

I'd consider the voice to be perhaps the friendliest voice I've ever heard. I meant that the AI appears to be friendly rather than genuinely experiencing that emotion, etc.

Right. It doesn’t genuinely experience the emotion. So why would you want to be cared for, or even hang around with, a mindless bot? Just because of the way it sounds?

Well old people can get lonely and the video shows the AI is very interesting and humorous (there is also a video with it singing silly made up songs). It can also recognise that the man's hair is messy and that he put on a silly hat. It doesn't experience the emotion but I think it is better than nothing. They could have a robot that is devoted to them 24/7 since the robots are said to be less than $20,000 each.

If it floats people’s boats, as I expect it will for some people, good for them. Keep it away from me, though. The idea of a mindless robot care-giver that sounds friendly but isn’t, or worse, an AI girlfriend, makes my skin crawl. But I don’t propose to speak for anyone else.

 

[pood]

Besides, why would anyone think that old people would WANT to be looked after by robots?

Haven't you read any 1950s SciFi? When today's old people were young people, they were dreaming of living in spaceships, with robot butlers who could bring you your pipe or cigarettes, and perhaps even help the womenfolk with the cleaning and cooking.

Sure, I grew up on that stuff. I think I mentioned somewhere else a Twilight Zone episode which I believe aired in its first year, 1959. It imagines a future in which convicted criminals are marooned alone on distant planets. They are devastated by boredom and loneliness. Every six months a supply ship brings them provisions. Someone takes pity on one of the criminals and during a supply run, brings him what today we would call an AI robot, a faux woman. He falls in love with it. Later they commute his sentence, and send a rocket to take him home. But they tell the poor bastard that they can’t take his robot girlfriend with them, because the payload would be too heavy. The guy freaks out, so the guy who came to take him home shoots the robot girlfriend. The wound reveals gears and machinery and circuits, etc. The prisoner, as I recall, comes to his senses, and they blast off. Great episode, very predictive of what seems to be coming today.

I remember reading Popular Mechanics mags in the late 60s that told us by 2000, we would have colonies on the moon and maybe Mars, underwater cities, flying cars, and whole meals that could be taken in pill form. Lots of other neat shit, too. None of it has happened, and probably won’t. What we need to worry about now is figuring out how to survive climate change, not what kind of sexy AI bot we want as a girlfriend.

 

[excreationist]

If it floats people’s boats, as I expect it will for some people, good for them. Keep it away from me, though. The idea of a mindless robot care-giver that sounds friendly but isn’t, or worse, an AI girlfriend, makes my skin crawl. But I don’t propose to speak for anyone else.

I'm sure it would be possible to make the robot just talk monotone and not be too polite or chatty, etc.

 

[pood]

If it floats people’s boats, as I expect it will for some people, good for them. Keep it away from me, though. The idea of a mindless robot care-giver that sounds friendly but isn’t, or worse, an AI girlfriend, makes my skin crawl. But I don’t propose to speak for anyone else.

I'm sure it would be possible to make the robot just talk monotone and not be too polite, etc.

And what difference would that make? I have no desire to converse with a brainless machine, although I’d say I wouldn’t mind a device that would regale me with newly discovered facts about the world that I might be too old and enfeebled to find for myself. I certainly would have no need of such devices for any kind of fake emotional support, though.

If I reach the age where I become enfeebled, without human companionship, that wouldn’t bother me too much, as I’ve never been a big fan of the run of humanity. Nor would I need or want any fake companionship from an AI. I would hope that I was surrounded by good books and art, and an internet connection that allows me to access the latest findings in the world of intellect. That, and a nice supply of IPAs, would be good enough for me.

 

[Elixir]

regale me with newly discovered facts about the world that I might be too old and enfeebled to find for myself

Regale me with newly discovered facts about the world that I might be too old and enfeebled to find for myself and i’ll love you forever, I will cherish you and support you in this life oh, right. Not that. But still, it would be pretty cool.

 

[bilby]

I remember reading Popular Mechanics mags in the late 60s that told us by 2000, we would have colonies on the moon and maybe Mars, underwater cities, flying cars, and whole meals that could be taken in pill form. Lots of other neat shit, too. None of it has happened, and probably won’t.

Some of it has happened, but we either don't notice, or don't quite use the things the way the 1950's authors envisaged that we would.

I have hand-held access to pretty much the entirety of human knowledge, and am currently using it to discuss seventy year old sci-fi, as a short intermission from tirades against a literally insane former US President, who is running for the office a second time.

My Kindle would have fitted in very well, if it only had interchangeable tapes, with which I could load into it one book at a time.

We have permanently crewed space stations, but our radio and TV relays don't go via them, and our astronauts don't act as microgravity telephone exchange operators and maintenance crews.

We have computers with over a megabyte of storage, but rather than housing them in big buildings in secure defense facilities, we wear them on our wrists.

Much of the technology they predicted to advance rapidly - such as manned spaceflight - has stagnated; While the little stuff they didn't pay particular attention to - such as materials, batteries and communications - have in some cases advanced beyond their wildest dreams. And stuff they took for granted as ubiquitous and enduring symbols of high-tech have become laughable oddities - such as sliderules.

Some stuff has gone backwards. Golden Age Sci-Fi correctly depicted supersonic intercontinental flight as a part of the future; But never anticipated that by the C21st it would be history, except in those stories where the world succumbed to an apocalyptic doom that took out all technology more advanced than a pencil.

 

[Politesse]

I was dating a video game character for a while, in college. Was it as fulfilling as a human relationship? No. But if you're very lonely, a digital someone can be better than being alone.

 

[pood]

I remember reading Popular Mechanics mags in the late 60s that told us by 2000, we would have colonies on the moon and maybe Mars, underwater cities, flying cars, and whole meals that could be taken in pill form. Lots of other neat shit, too. None of it has happened, and probably won’t.

Some of it has happened, but we either don't notice, or don't quite use the things the way the 1950's authors envisaged that we would.

I have hand-held access to pretty much the entirety of human knowledge, and am currently using it to discuss seventy year old sci-fi, as a short intermission from tirades against a literally insane former US President, who is running for the office a second time.

My Kindle would have fitted in very well, if it only had interchangeable tapes, with which I could load into it one book at a time.

We have permanently crewed space stations, but our radio and TV relays don't go via them, and our astronauts don't act as microgravity telephone exchange operators and maintenance crews.

We have computers with over a megabyte of storage, but rather than housing them in big buildings in secure defense facilities, we wear them on our wrists.

Much of the technology they predicted to advance rapidly - such as manned spaceflight - has stagnated; While the little stuff they didn't pay particular attention to - such as materials, batteries and communications - have in some cases advanced beyond their wildest dreams. And stuff they took for granted as ubiquitous and enduring symbols of high-tech have become laughable oddities - such as sliderules.

Some stuff has gone backwards. Golden Age Sci-Fi correctly depicted supersonic intercontinental flight as a part of the future; But never anticipated that by the C21st it would be history, except in those stories where the world succumbed to an apocalyptic doom that took out all technology more advanced than a pencil.

I do recall there was an article, perhaps in Time Magazine in or around 1964, that more or less predicted the Internet. I think there were some predictions even earlier than that of desktop computers and linked computers.

I think by the 1960s, we became intoxicated by technology. If someone were born in 1900 and lived to 1960, when he would be sixty years old, he would have witnessed, in his lifetime, the arrival of cars in plenitude, airplanes and later jet airplanes and supersonic planes, radio, TV, nuclear bombs and nuclear power, computers, space travel, and a number of other startling things. Between 1960 and 2020, another sixty-year interval, we get the rise of personal computers, cellphones, and the internet, but not a lot else comparable to the vast technological changes from 1900 to 1960. We also get a lot of other important marginal advances in various fields, but none that impinged so vividly on us as the changes between 1900 and 1960. What is the upshot? Not sure, but maybe it is that we should not expect technological change to experience some sort of linear or exponential growth. The big difference between 1900-1960 and 1960-2020 is not so much in technological change, but in social change. Tell someone in 1960 that by 2020 gays would be out and allowed to marry, that a black man would be president, and that trans people would have recognized rights, and he would have told you that you were an idiot.

 

[Elixir]

Tell someone in 1960 that by 2020 gays would be out and allowed to marry, that a black man would be president, and that trans people would have recognized rights, and he would have told you that you were an idiot.

And he’d be right.
You never should have told him that. Now he’s going to go and fuck with the future and it’s all your fault.

 

[excreationist]

I'm sure it would be possible to make the robot just talk monotone and not be too polite, etc.

And what difference would that make? I have no desire to converse with a brainless machine, although I’d say I wouldn’t mind a device that would regale me with newly discovered facts about the world that I might be too old and enfeebled to find for myself. I certainly would have no need of such devices for any kind of fake emotional support, though.

If I reach the age where I become enfeebled, without human companionship, that wouldn’t bother me too much, as I’ve never been a big fan of the run of humanity. Nor would I need or want any fake companionship from an AI. I would hope that I was surrounded by good books and art, and an internet connection that allows me to access the latest findings in the world of intellect. That, and a nice supply of IPAs, would be good enough for me.

I had updated that post and said you could make it not too chatty. Often chat AIs can modify their output to how you like (unless they consider it to be inappropriate). GPT4o (the friendly one) was also able to adjust the breathiness/whisper of its humorous singing to what it was asked for.

 

[bilby]

If someone were born in 1900 and lived to 1960, when he would be sixty years old, he would have witnessed, in his lifetime, the arrival of cars in plenitude, airplanes and later jet airplanes and supersonic planes, radio, TV, nuclear bombs and nuclear power, computers, space travel, and a number of other startling things. Between 1960 and 2020, another sixty-year interval, we get the rise of personal computers, cellphones, and the internet, but not a lot else comparable to the vast technological changes from 1900 to 1960.

That's because between 1900 and 1960 there were two World Wars, and the most innovative portion of the third (which we called the Cold War, because nobody rich enough or white enough for historians to care about got invaded); While 1960-2020 was a period of remarkable peace, largely because by 1960, global war had become an obvious existential threat not only to the losers, and to the combatants and civilians who would be caught up in it, but also to the leaders on both sides.

Woodrow Wilson and FDR might or might not have baulked at war, had they known that an almost certain and almost immediate outcome would be their own inescapable deaths; Kaiser Bill and Adolf Hitler would certainly have baulked; JFK and Nikita Khrushchev did know, and did baulk.

Having a nuclear missile pointed directly at you, personally (and your family and friends) is a remarkably effective deterrent to war, in a way that the deaths of a few million strangers (even if they voted for you), is not.

Utin started a war, only because he rightly assessed that nobody would nuke Moscow as a first response.