I've been watching "promising research," even "breakthroughs" in finding a cure for cancer for fifty years.
David Brin's latest novel, and a TED talk
- Thread starter RAMA
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I've been watching "promising research," even "breakthroughs" in finding a cure for cancer for fifty years.
I don't think future Americans are going to live like current Americans do. America's carbon foot print will probably shrink because it has to and also because we as a society are becoming tired of consumption. It's the reason why the recovery hasn't really happened.
It took 100 years between Malthus' An Essay on the Principle of Population which was based on fertilizer use and the Haber process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
Remember that's without computers, internet, cell phones etc..
We can make a radical change in 25 years. Look at what cellphones and the internet has done.
You are forgetting one thing. More people means more scientist and more engineers. That alone will ensure continuing progress. The number of scientist literally tippled in size when the BRIC countries modernized and there is still room for growth.
One thing that is limiting you is the idea of a Western dominate scientific community. That's about to end in the next 25 years. Hopefully replaced by a more global community. That's why I really don't care about the US's scientific standing. If the country decides to stay dumb than other countries will make up the slack.
There is never going to be a "cure" for cancer but we have made huge advances. Childhood leukemia's are rarely fatal now and we've tripled the lifespan of women with breast cancer. The new generation of anti-emetics (and that includes marijuana) have allowed more patients to complete their chemotherapy, raising their chance for remission.
The next generation of targeted immune therapies maybe the closest we ever get to a cure.
Yeah I didn't write that correctly. Using marijuana as an anti-emetic and appetite inducer was pretty novel but it was an accidental finding and it's still pretty controversial.
Personally I've given up bringing reason to this thread but can somebody please teach Rama how to multiquote?
Don't we have a "yawn" smiley yet?
The Japanese like their robots too, but theirs are cuter. None of this advances AI an inch.
We will be using fossil fuels in 20 years. I guarantee it.
The Japanese like their robots too, but theirs are cuter. None of this advances AI an inch.
We will be using fossil fuels in 20 years. I guarantee it.
SCHWING!
AI is advancing even if it's slowly. I remember in the 90's when people were ready to give up on speech recognition. Now we have Siri and Google speak. I also remember people saying that computers would never go beyond brute force computation, but look there's Watson using adaptive algorithms to win Jeopardy.
When humans develop AI, it won't be like HAL9000 or Data. It'll probably be like an advance app that runs in the background.
Siri still has a few kinks to work out...
My friend asked it who was playing Lois Lane in the new Superman film and it said "John Williams".
That's a lot better than in the 2000 when speech recognition could barely understand individual words much less whole sentences.
I have no doubt of that. A full transition from fossil fuels is going to take at least 50 years, longer if we keep putting it off like we are now.
There are real breakthroughs now, and as opposed to the linear, straight ahead thought process common on these threads, the evolution of AI is a parallel process, that results from the technological advances in different fields based on exponential info technologies from many different investment sources(hence sojourner's easily dismissed gripe about one technophilanthropist being ineffectual), the advances in the general field of AI are accelerating...and here is one way they have been, even over the last decade when AI was seemingly not advancing, it still made progress, there are a few basic examples here (some of which I have made before) that demonstrate the magnitude of these changes in a short time...but of course, since even that rate is accelerating, there is much more to come..
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/09/khosla-artificial-intelligence/
And as usual, there are quite a few examples of AI improving...and those who drive it forward...they are definitely NOT the people who say it can't be done.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles...gence-pioneer-we-can-build-robots-with-morals
