lol zarf. It's been a while, but I know we had some basic computers as early as the mid-late '40s. While the technologies to process and store information have improved TREMENDOUSLY since then, both in how much they improved and how quickly, modern computers are not some entirely different thing than early computers. They still have code that processors run on. They still take input and process it and output it according to the code just like they did 50 years ago. So if you asked someone 50 years ago if it was "science fiction" to think that they might have computers that were SO much faster, they'd be judging what they knew to be the limits of computer technology. Someone educated enough would obviously not call it "science fiction," seeing as we've improved computers this much.

This is a bit different than just presuming "since computer technology has improved so much, surely artificial intelligence is soon to be developed!" AI is more than just the input, processing, and output of computers. No matter if we develop computers a million times faster than they are right now, that doesn't give us AI. This same progression we've seen does not necessarily lead to AI at all.

He talked about self-maintaining robots, You_Fool. And not just for industrial production.

I can't wait for the magical robot overlords. It'll be so COOL!

> K. William Fancsali wrote:

> lol zarf. It's been a while, but I know we had some basic computers as early as the mid-late '40s. While the technologies to process and store information have improved TREMENDOUSLY since then, both in how much they improved and how quickly, modern computers are not some entirely different thing than early computers. They still have code that processors run on. They still take input and process it and output it according to the code just like they did 50 years ago. So if you asked someone 50 years ago if it was "science fiction" to think that they might have computers that were SO much faster, they'd be judging what they knew to be the limits of computer technology. Someone educated enough would obviously not call it "science fiction," seeing as we've improved computers this much.

This is a bit different than just presuming "since computer technology has improved so much, surely artificial intelligence is soon to be developed!" AI is more than just the input, processing, and output of computers. No matter if we develop computers a million times faster than they are right now, that doesn't give us AI. This same progression we've seen does not necessarily lead to AI at all.

Wow... did you know the guy who ran IBM in the 80's (or 60's, I'm not sure which) said the personal computer was impossible and couldn't get mass distributed?  Oh, and Bill Gates didn't think the Internet would become a possibility until just before it did, and he doubled back and changed his business strategy to adjust to the coming of the Internet.

Yeah, I guess these people would be educated. 

True, it doesn't mean AI is coming like tomorrow, and we should start stockpiling shotguns for the robot revolution... but it doesn't mean they're impossible.  It just means you can't write off something as impossible.

I respectfully disagree. I think you are wrong. We should definitely be stockpiling shotguns for the robot revolution.

I'm not saying it's necessarily impossible. I wouldn't know. I know this. But I also know that if it is possible, it's not like we're on the verge of accomplishing it.

and shows how close i read his opening post...

Zarf: a better example would of been cell phones, since they were developed straight out of Star Trek. Wouldn't someone in the 50/60's think that mobile communication devices was scifi?

In 50 years what might be common that we now think stupid sci-fi imagination?

As for actual AI, yes the knowledge to make it now is notavailable, but that doesn't mean that someone won't come up with the discovery, or find a way, even if by accident.

I like the Hyperion/Endymion development of AI. Completly un-realistic, but that doesn't stop the model being possible. Someone with enough knowledge and skill to theoritically do it come up with an interesting theory and then develop it and by doing so learns new things and new ways of doing things and the whole process is self-evolving...

wtf = he's on drugs

"Don't get me wrong; I was psyched I wanted to talk more about the magical robots that xeno brings up over and over again. smile"

We have our priorities all wrong: we are mass-producing motherboards and electronic components to produce robots that produce gas-guzzling SUVs, when we should be mass-producing motherboards and electronic components to produce robots to produce and distribute FOOD /  WATER.

Priorities for this global triage situation: Food >>> Housing >>> Emergency Services / Health Care >>> Education >>> Mass-transportation >>> and then you #@%-ing SUVs. 

And now xeno loses it, due to yet another revelation as to the utter STUPIDITY of our societies: WHY THE %^@ IS IT CHEAPER TO DRIVE AN SUV EVERYDAY THAN IT IS TO TAKE THE BUS / SUBWAY EVERYDAY?  Think about how !@#*-ed our societies are, will you?

I've had just about enough of this thread.

Here is a plan of ACTION: Step one find out if, in your country, when you buy a seedling of a tree and plant it on public land whether or not you still own that tree after you have planted it. 

I'm starting a new thread on this issue.  Where am I going with this?  You'll see...

Xeno it's not our problem that you simply do not understand or comprehend basic economic principles or lack understanding of historical economic shifts throughout human history. Nor do you FULLY understand what kind of economic system you want while the rest of us do. Which is why you can't comprehend why it isn't possible nor why it may never be possible given our current technological abilities.

Robots cannot do everything, nor can they save the world from all of our mishaps. Despite what you think there is enough food and resources to feed every person on this planet. As a species there is enough food resources distributed just enough to ensure the continued survival and growth of our race. If hunger was such a huge issue our population and numbers would be going down. They aren't, their going up. And the primary sources of that growth comes from the most impoverished nations, so obviously they have enough food to continue growing as a population.

Your also under the false assumption that if everyone has food and water and shelter then everyone will get along. It just won't happen. Different ideologies, cultures, and individual practices will continue to fracture and maintain differences and misunderstandings within our race. It will only get worse once we begin immigrating off this rock called Earth and into other star systems.

Furthermore what you failed to realize is that EVEN if your magical machines existed, there would STILL be a market for RAW resources, such as metals. People would have ownership over those resources and that value of those assets would back up the monetary system. Even once we begin getting enough resources from other sources so that this market becomes meaningless there will still be a market for habitable space, ownership of this land and territory will then become the new market and monetary backing for our civilization. Markets don't just vanish, they change.

Note: The economic system you are proposing IS a pure communist system. This is the type of society that Lenin envisioned when the revolution began. The problem is that's impossible to achieve given our current technological and economic conditions. The failure of the Soviet Union proves that, they couldn't do it, became corrupt and destroyed itself.

I hope you take the time in the future to REALLY learn something about economics and about how the world works in general. Big ideas is good, but big ideas with the knowledge to make them a reality is even better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

Communism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general.[1][2][3] Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human society, which would be achieved through a proletarian revolution. "Pure communism" in the Marxian sense refers to a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life.

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Note: Communism as an idea ISN'T a bad thing. The thing is that it's impossible to achieve and in trying to achieve it you do more harm than good.

To be a bit more specific this "resource economy" is Marxism

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Marxism

Marxism
The Communist Manifesto.
Main article: Marxism

Like other socialists, Marx and Engels sought an end to capitalism and the systems which they perceived to be responsible for the exploitation of workers. But whereas earlier socialists often favored longer-term social reform, Marx and Engels believed that popular revolution was all but inevitable, and the only path to the socialist state.[8]

According to the Marxist argument for communism, the main characteristic of human life in class society is alienation; and communism is desirable because it entails the full realization of human freedom.[9] Marx here follows Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in conceiving freedom not merely as an absence of restraints but as action with content.[10] According to Marx, Communism's outlook on freedom was based on an agent, obstacle, and goal. The agent is the common/working people; the obstacles are class divisions, economic inequalities, unequal life-chances, and false consciousness; and the goal is the fulfillment of human needs including satisfying work, and fair share of the product.[11][12] They believed that communism allowed people to do what they want, but also put humans in such conditions and such relations with one another that they would not wish to exploit, or have any need to. Whereas for Hegel the unfolding of this ethical life in history is mainly driven by the realm of ideas, for Marx, communism emerged from material forces, particularly the development of the means of production.[10]

Marxism holds that a process of class conflict and revolutionary struggle will result in victory for the proletariat and the establishment of a communist society in which private ownership is abolished over time and the means of production and subsistence belong to the community. Marx himself wrote little about life under communism, giving only the most general indication as to what constituted a communist society. It is clear that it entails abundance in which there is little limit to the projects that humans may undertake.[citation needed] In the popular slogan that was adopted by the communist movement, communism was a world in which each gave according to their abilities, and received according to their needs. The German Ideology (1845) was one of Marx's few writings to elaborate on the communist future:

    "In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."[13]

Marx's lasting vision was to add this vision to a theory of how society was moving in a law-governed way toward communism, and, with some tension, a political theory that explained why revolutionary activity was required to bring it about.[10]

In the late 19th century, the terms "socialism" and "communism" were often used interchangeably. However, Marx and Engels argued that communism would not emerge from capitalism in a fully developed state, but would pass through a "first phase" in which most productive property was owned in common, but with some class differences remaining. The "first phase" would eventually evolve into a "higher phase" in which class differences were eliminated, and a state was no longer needed. Lenin frequently used the term "socialism" to refer to Marx and Engels' supposed "first phase" of communism and used the term "communism" interchangeably with Marx and Engels' "higher phase" of communism.[3]

These later aspects, particularly as developed by Lenin, provided the underpinning for the mobilizing features of 20th century Communist parties. Later writers such as Louis Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas modified Marx's vision by allotting a central place to the state in the development of such societies, by arguing for a prolonged transition period of socialism prior to the attainment of full communism.[citation needed]

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This is NOT Marxism-Leninism, as that system is the one used by the old Soviet Union. Pure Marxism is basically the same thing your proposing. Minus the magical robots of course. ^.^

Actually they can do everything short of design work.

The essential problem are:

Maintainance
Cost to produce said robot to install a nut in the glove box
Space for the robots (They take a lot of space)
Resources expended to produce robots (Lots of metal for even the smallest of jobs)
Electrical or other power source issues
Have to melt them all to make a new production line, as most are very custom to their task

I know what can and what can not be done by robots. The things that can't be done by robots are the things i siad that the humans would still do...

It isn't done on a large scale yet cause it is too expensive to do so...

There's nothing political at all about the resource-based economy.  As I have said again and again, free-market economics would still function, only not with silly digital 1's and 0's as currency but rather actual, useful stuff as currency, delivered via a privatized and highly competitive distribution and storage network rather than the useless, self-defeating, unethical, corrupt, self-serving, monopolistic / oligopolistic banks.

Want to talk about communism.  Ok.  Look at how much the state controls the economy in our day and age.  Look at the regulations preventing people from pursuing / starting their own business: licenses, permits, codes, mandatory insurance, fees, yadda, yadda.  The governments around the world have a piece of the pie of everything with tremendously ridiculous and inefficient tax systems, and, bylaws and such prohibitions on pretty much everything due to a justice system that has allowed outright silly verdicts to carry and the resulting precedents on everything from sueing your neighbor for having a tree blocking their view to sueing a co-worker because he wears bad cologne, strangling virtually any possibility of individuals creating REAL LIFE innovations that could improve the quality of life for people or solve the social issues tearing at the fabric of our societies.  Let's talk about communism. Yes, let's.  Let's look at a country such as, oh, I don't know, the US of A, and analyse it's level of state control over industry: name ANY facet of the US economy that isn't manipulated or controlled somehow by the US government.