Author Topic: Robots and their impact on the future  (Read 537536 times)

Schaefer Light

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #750 on: September 02, 2016, 02:19:09 PM »
Wealth based would go even farther in that regard, wealth inequality is larger than income

"Interesting point. Tax the 'stache - this would probably work better than pure income based. Thank you."

"Given the savings rate in the US, I don't think we need to do anything more to discourage it."

That is like saying having an income tax makes people earn less.  There could be exclusions for the first million and have it ramp up as you go.  If you are worth billions, you can afford to pay significantly more than the Warren Buffett's, Mitt Romney's and Donald Trump's currently are paying into the system.  If you are trying to curb off a select group of people owning the majority of the US or world, then taxing outliers is a good way of doing it.  Currently the top 1% own something like 45% of the wealth and it is climbing each year.  If you take out personal residences it is much more.  What is the right amount?  With automation and technology becoming a bigger factor, income and wealth inequality are going to expand significantly in the next decade or two.
Doesn't that amount to double taxation, though?  Presumably, you already paid income taxes on at least a portion of your earnings.  If you put that money into savings, then is it okay for the government to tax it again?

arebelspy

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #751 on: September 02, 2016, 02:34:10 PM »
Doesn't that amount to double taxation, though?  Presumably, you already paid income taxes on at least a portion of your earnings.  If you put that money into savings, then is it okay for the government to tax it again?

1) Not necessarily, if you replace income taxx with a wealth tax.

2) Even if you had both, and it was double taxation... who cares?  Double taxation is a phrase people seem to use as a scary boogyman.  We have double taxation all the time.  Ever bought anything and paid sales tax with money you earned and paid income tax on?  Ever paid property taxes with money you paid capital gains tax on?  Just saying "double taxation" is meaningless--if it's bad, say why it's bad, not merely the fact that it's already been taxed for a separate reason.  :)
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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #752 on: September 02, 2016, 04:19:03 PM »

Agreed: every dollar gets taxed infinity times, "double" taxation really doesn't mean anything. Boss pays you for working, its taxed, then you buy something, taxed again, then the money you gave to the store goes to the store employee, taxed again, then the employee buys something...



Of course another alternative that might achieve the same goal, while being possibly "more fair", would be a something like 99% gift/inheritance tax.  Returns trillions into the economy, everyone starts with a level playing field and has to earn their own way, and we could then have a 0% income tax and 0% sales tax, thereby encouraging employment and economic activity.


It would also help if 'One Person One Parcel' became a thing.  Land is one basic necessity that automation will have a tough time mass producing.
But if you can afford your own little bit of land, it's possible to subsist with little or no input from the rest of the economy.



Oh, and speaking of Trumpenomics... I recently realized that if I use Trump Accounting, I am worth over half a MILLION DOLLARS!!!!!!

marty998

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #753 on: September 02, 2016, 04:32:57 PM »
Ooh... tell me more about Trump Accounting!

I need to get my CPD hours up, so learning about a new branch of accounting will be good :)

tomsang

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #754 on: September 02, 2016, 05:36:47 PM »
States most effected by driverless cars.  4.4 million drivers will need to find employment as engineers :)

"According to the 2014 Census data, there are more than 4.4 million Americans aged 16 and over working as drivers"
 
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/02/driverless-cars-will-kill-the-most-jobs-in-select-us-states.html



tomsang

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #755 on: September 03, 2016, 07:45:52 AM »
https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-self-driving-drone-tractors-154658185.html

Automated farm equipment technology replacing workers.

Bakari

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #756 on: September 03, 2016, 10:47:30 AM »
Ooh... tell me more about Trump Accounting!

I need to get my CPD hours up, so learning about a new branch of accounting will be good :)


I don't want to derail this thread... esp. not with politics (the subject here is ultimately bigger than any one election cycle)


But, essentially, you add up all your assets.
That's it.  You don't subtract any debts or liabilities. 
You also count the full value of any property in which you own at least partial share toward your own net worth.  And lastly, anything without any concrete numerical value, you get to make up a number for it.


Hence a $10B net worth by Trump Accounting, where Bloomberg calculates 3B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump#Net_worth
http://fortune.com/2015/07/17/donald-trump-net-worth-calculator/

States most effected by driverless cars.  4.4 million drivers will need to find employment as engineers :)

"According to the 2014 Census data, there are more than 4.4 million Americans aged 16 and over working as drivers"
 
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/02/driverless-cars-will-kill-the-most-jobs-in-select-us-states.html



Assuming some engineer tasks can't be automated...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_programming#Implementations

http://www.cs.miami.edu/~tptp/OverviewOfATP.html

AlanStache

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #757 on: September 03, 2016, 11:07:17 AM »
...
Assuming some engineer tasks can't be automated...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_programming#Implementations

http://www.cs.miami.edu/~tptp/OverviewOfATP.html

Thats nothing, human engineers have been working to put human engines out of jobs for 200+ years :-)  We are a lazy bunch that will always work to automate things even it it is our own job.  Not always the smartest move but still.

sol

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #758 on: September 05, 2016, 08:43:06 PM »
You also count the full value of any property in which you own at least partial share toward your own net worth.  And lastly, anything without any concrete numerical value, you get to make up a number for it.

Don't forget that you get choose your own capitalization rate for recurring payments made to your brand.  Trump bring in about $15million/year by licensing the Trump name to ties/universities/airlines/steaks/hotels/etc that he doesn't have any actual equity in, and he calculates that he would need $3 billion in assets at today's low interest rates to generate that kind of cashflow, and therefore his brand name is listed as worth $3billion. 

Think about that for a second.  He thinks his own name is worth three billion dollars, and he had the balls to actually report a dollar figure like that on his disclosure forms.  It's the single largest "asset" he owns.

AlanStache

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #759 on: September 06, 2016, 06:10:21 AM »
You also count the full value of any property in which you own at least partial share toward your own net worth.  And lastly, anything without any concrete numerical value, you get to make up a number for it.

Don't forget that you get choose your own capitalization rate for recurring payments made to your brand.  Trump bring in about $15million/year by licensing the Trump name to ties/universities/airlines/steaks/hotels/etc that he doesn't have any actual equity in, and he calculates that he would need $3 billion in assets at today's low interest rates to generate that kind of cashflow, and therefore his brand name is listed as worth $3billion. 

Think about that for a second.  He thinks his own name is worth three billion dollars, and he had the balls to actually report a dollar figure like that on his disclosure forms.  It's the single largest "asset" he owns.

15 million / 3 billion= 1/200 or 0.5%, I am no fancy business guy but if your goal is that in Made-Up-Land.... I would like to think I am missing something...  But I guess he wants the number to come out that way.

Schaefer Light

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #760 on: September 06, 2016, 06:35:39 AM »
Doesn't that amount to double taxation, though?  Presumably, you already paid income taxes on at least a portion of your earnings.  If you put that money into savings, then is it okay for the government to tax it again?

1) Not necessarily, if you replace income taxx with a wealth tax.

2) Even if you had both, and it was double taxation... who cares?  Double taxation is a phrase people seem to use as a scary boogyman.  We have double taxation all the time.  Ever bought anything and paid sales tax with money you earned and paid income tax on?  Ever paid property taxes with money you paid capital gains tax on?  Just saying "double taxation" is meaningless--if it's bad, say why it's bad, not merely the fact that it's already been taxed for a separate reason.  :)
The difference is those are choices.  You can choose to buy less stuff or less property and thus pay lower (or even no) taxes.  If there's a wealth tax, what's to prevent people from just stuffing cash under the mattress and not reporting it?  I'd consider it ;).

arebelspy

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #761 on: September 06, 2016, 07:01:15 AM »
The same thing that prevents people from not declaring income that they should: the law.  Some still don't, and face penalties if they're caught.
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Schaefer Light

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #762 on: September 06, 2016, 07:15:05 AM »
The same thing that prevents people from not declaring income that they should: the law.  Some still don't, and face penalties if they're caught.
It would be a lot easier for most people to hide "wealth" than income, though.  Income taxes come straight out of my paycheck.  I never have an opportunity to shield that money from taxation.

arebelspy

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #763 on: September 06, 2016, 12:56:03 PM »
The same thing that prevents people from not declaring income that they should: the law.  Some still don't, and face penalties if they're caught.
It would be a lot easier for most people to hide "wealth" than income, though.  Income taxes come straight out of my paycheck.  I never have an opportunity to shield that money from taxation.

Ever heard the phrase about being paid "under the table?"  Or "self reporting" income?

I mean, no matter what your system, you'll have people trying to cheat it.
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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #764 on: September 07, 2016, 08:19:34 AM »

The difference is those are choices.  You can choose to buy less stuff or less property and thus pay lower (or even no) taxes.  If there's a wealth tax, what's to prevent people from just stuffing cash under the mattress and not reporting it?  I'd consider it ;).


Sure, there are a few insane people who feel the need to make massive amounts of money and then not spend any of it, why work 80 hours a week for a lifetime and live on a mattress on the floor with no heat and die because they won't get any medical treatment except the free clinic and then people who knew them discover they were worth tens of millions.  It happens.

And with a wealth tax a few people completely obsessed with taxes might join them.
It would be equally stupid, to amass wealth you have no intention of ever spending, for fear of losing a portion of it.
You might as well just burn it all to avoid being taxed.

Schaefer Light

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #765 on: September 07, 2016, 01:13:33 PM »
I don't think this will come as any big surprise, but I simply prefer a sales tax to an income or wealth tax.  I think it's idiotic to punish people for being successful or smart with their money.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #766 on: September 07, 2016, 02:49:21 PM »
I don't think this will come as any big surprise, but I simply prefer a sales tax to an income or wealth tax.  I think it's idiotic to punish people for being successful or smart with their money.


Taxes aren't a punishment.  They are the price for living in an advanced society, one which provides things like roads, bridges, telecommunication networks, courts, police, military, and many other things which make being successful possible.


If one wanted to find some undeveloped wilderness on an unclaimed island in the ocean, certainly no one would stop them, and then they wouldn't have to pay taxes, but then they will have nothing to invest in and no one to sell to and they are not going to have any wealth to tax anyway.

Yankuba

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #767 on: September 09, 2016, 03:00:04 PM »
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/interview-with-david-autor

MIT economist on tech, trade & job markets, how Chinese imports affect U.S. politics & family structure, and the Janus-faced gig economy

tomsang

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #768 on: September 12, 2016, 07:56:57 AM »

AlanStache

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #769 on: September 12, 2016, 12:52:02 PM »
GF's mother posted this on FB, was on the AFL-CIO's page; i really wanted to respond but thought better of it.  Am totally on board with showing respect to people* and not forcing all students onto a college track but they could have picked three better jobs.  Like ones that wont be decimated by automation/robots in the near future. 



respect to people*: I try anyway....

lordmetroid

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #770 on: September 12, 2016, 03:46:35 PM »
i dont get how this doesnt just lead to inflation.  how can you take what was 0 dollars as the bottom income and raise it to 10000 dollars and not create artifical inflation.  demand for goods will go up for those earning under 100k b/c now they have more disposable income.  and those without income will now have income to buy things.  therefore driving the price of goods with larger demand b/c now everyone has more disposable income. except the top end making over 100k AGI.  can some explain how pumping more money into an economy to increase spending power doesnt result in inflation.  i'm not an economist. but to collect the revenue to pay out such a wage would be through some kind of tax which would then drive up the cost of whatever that tax was.
It doesn't lead to inflation because it is only a basic income which would be far less than any income earned by working. For inflation to occur their needs to be an expansion of the salaries in the general population. In practice basic income is already implemented as part of welfare subsidies but you have to jump through hoops and conform to the program.

tomsang

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #771 on: September 13, 2016, 05:02:43 PM »
GF's mother posted this on FB, was on the AFL-CIO's page; i really wanted to respond but thought better of it.  Am totally on board with showing respect to people* and not forcing all students onto a college track but they could have picked three better jobs.  Like ones that wont be decimated by automation/robots in the near future. 



respect to people*: I try anyway....

Your post made me search for a good pizza robot. This looks pretty cool.  Especially the pizza deliver vans that cook your pizza so it just out of the oven fresh when it hits your door.  Combine that with a self driving vehicle and labor is almost gone.   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-24/inside-silicon-valley-s-robot-pizzeria

tomsang

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #772 on: September 21, 2016, 10:59:30 AM »

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #773 on: September 21, 2016, 11:05:43 AM »

EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #774 on: September 21, 2016, 04:14:33 PM »
Why is it I get a 'Jurrasic Park' vibe after reading about killer robots that 'will only target the offending Lionfish'? 

theadvicist

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #775 on: September 22, 2016, 09:01:25 AM »
Change the century and water to land and this literally could be describing the Europeans...

"Since arriving in US waters in the 1980s, these fearsome creatures have left a trail of destruction along the Atlantic Coast, from Rhode Island to Venezuela.
Lionfish can reduce a flourishing coral reef to barren wasteland in a matter of weeks. Native fish, unfamiliar with the new arrival, do not know to avoid it, and the predator gorges to the point of obesity.
As so-called "apex predators" they sit at the top of the food chain, unthreatened by any other creature. They breed rapidly, and are extremely resilient and adaptable. No solution has been found to control their advance yet, but conservationists could soon have a new tool at their disposal: killer robots."

AlanStache

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #776 on: September 22, 2016, 09:52:01 AM »
Change the century and water to land and this literally could be describing the Europeans...

"Since arriving in US waters in the 1980s, these fearsome creatures have left a trail of destruction along the Atlantic Coast, from Rhode Island to Venezuela.
Lionfish can reduce a flourishing coral reef to barren wasteland in a matter of weeks. Native fish, unfamiliar with the new arrival, do not know to avoid it, and the predator gorges to the point of obesity.
As so-called "apex predators" they sit at the top of the food chain, unthreatened by any other creature. They breed rapidly, and are extremely resilient and adaptable. No solution has been found to control their advance yet, but conservationists could soon have a new tool at their disposal: killer robots."

Ok Agent Smith, lets take it back down a notch. 

Quote
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.

Metric Mouse

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #777 on: September 25, 2016, 07:51:21 AM »
Why is it I get a 'Jurrasic Park' vibe after reading about killer robots that 'will only target the offending Lionfish'?

I don't see what could possibly go wrong. :D

tomsang

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #778 on: September 29, 2016, 11:39:04 AM »
Can AI write a screenplay that makes senses and projects emotion?

Interesting article and Sci-Fi short film.  A bit bizarre, but I also had trouble getting into the movie Brazil way back when.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/some-like-it-bot/

arebelspy

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #779 on: September 29, 2016, 08:14:23 PM »
Can AI write a screenplay that makes senses and projects emotion?

Likely sooner rather than later.
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davisgang90

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #780 on: September 30, 2016, 03:33:45 AM »
Pepper learned how to play the ball in cup game.  After 100 failures it got it in the cup.  It never missed again.  Recursive learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkaRO8J_1XI

arebelspy

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #781 on: September 30, 2016, 03:40:48 AM »
Pepper learned how to play the ball in cup game.  After 100 failures it got it in the cup.  It never missed again.  Recursive learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkaRO8J_1XI

Ball in cup is WAY easier than that.  I didn't realize until he nailed it the first time how "narrow" that cup was.

Humans could maybe do it once or twice in a hundred, randomly.  And then not repeat it.

Nice.
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boarder42

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #782 on: September 30, 2016, 08:31:30 AM »
Pepper learned how to play the ball in cup game.  After 100 failures it got it in the cup.  It never missed again.  Recursive learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkaRO8J_1XI

Ball in cup is WAY easier than that.  I didn't realize until he nailed it the first time how "narrow" that cup was.

Humans could maybe do it once or twice in a hundred, randomly.  And then not repeat it.

Nice.

whats really cool is if they are all manufactured the same they will be able to teach new tasks in a lab and them beam the updates out to all the robots in the country at the same time.  so you wont actually have to teach your personal robot anything.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #783 on: September 30, 2016, 08:42:52 AM »
Pepper learned how to play the ball in cup game.  After 100 failures it got it in the cup.  It never missed again.  Recursive learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkaRO8J_1XI

Ball in cup is WAY easier than that.  I didn't realize until he nailed it the first time how "narrow" that cup was.

Humans could maybe do it once or twice in a hundred, randomly.  And then not repeat it.

Nice.

whats really cool is if they are all manufactured the same they will be able to teach new tasks in a lab and them beam the updates out to all the robots in the country at the same time.  so you wont actually have to teach your personal robot anything.

That is one of the main benefits of both Google's Car and Tesla's stuff. Every vehicle has exactly the same experience of every other vehicle. The more they are used, the better they get. Even though there has been a fatality with Tesla auto-drive, it still surpasses the average. It will only improve.

2lazy2retire

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #784 on: September 30, 2016, 09:09:03 AM »
For at least a decade we are going to have people sitting in the driverless cars and trucks, ready to take control if necessary. They will also need to prevent vandalism and clean up after the messy passengers and the drunk passengers that vomit or have accidents. This will be a new minimum wage job.

Jury still out on someone in place to take control,  as for vandalizing a car after ordering it from your phone that seems like it would be a short lived phenomena, self cleaning would be fairly easy I'd imagine, and central monitoring from a control station would take car of drunk passengers.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #787 on: September 30, 2016, 07:14:41 PM »
That is one of the main benefits of both Google's Car and Tesla's stuff. Every vehicle has exactly the same experience of every other vehicle.

Yeah, that's really neat--you don't drive your car for the day, but a million other people did, and your car improved because of it. 

The exponential growth potential is amazing.
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davisgang90

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #788 on: October 01, 2016, 03:33:35 AM »
That is one of the main benefits of both Google's Car and Tesla's stuff. Every vehicle has exactly the same experience of every other vehicle.

Yeah, that's really neat--you don't drive your car for the day, but a million other people did, and your car improved because of it. 

The exponential growth potential is amazing.
Amazing and a little terrifying...

AlanStache

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #789 on: October 01, 2016, 04:29:07 PM »
That is one of the main benefits of both Google's Car and Tesla's stuff. Every vehicle has exactly the same experience of every other vehicle.

Yeah, that's really neat--you don't drive your car for the day, but a million other people did, and your car improved because of it. 

The exponential growth potential is amazing.

Exponential growth but with significant diminishing returns.  A cars AI can only get so good at driving.  Teslas are about as good as a human in terms of deaths per mile and based on a youtube video I would call the system kludgey.  A driving AI 1000 times better than a good human and one 5000 times better are only sort of distinguishable and you would have to make subjective calls on there failure cases.  Two systems drove a gillion miles last year in the US; System A was involved in 3 fatalities, system B was involved in 5.  Which is a better system?  To decide you need to look at where they were used and the specifics of those 8 incidents and non-fatal injury rate and a dozen other parameters.  How many broken arms are worth a fleet wide 0.0001% mpg improvement or 0.001% decrease in arrival time?  Moore's Law held for a long time because we started a good distance away from the theoretical limit but current driving AI is fairly good and there is comparatively little room for improvement.

But yes automatic improvement of your system without you having to do anything will be really cool.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #790 on: October 01, 2016, 05:06:58 PM »
Exponential growth but with significant diminishing returns.  A cars AI can only get so good at driving.  Teslas are about as good as a human in terms of deaths per mile and based on a youtube video I would call the system kludgey.  A driving AI 1000 times better than a good human and one 5000 times better are only sort of distinguishable and you would have to make subjective calls on there failure cases.  Two systems drove a gillion miles last year in the US; System A was involved in 3 fatalities, system B was involved in 5.  Which is a better system?  To decide you need to look at where they were used and the specifics of those 8 incidents and non-fatal injury rate and a dozen other parameters.  How many broken arms are worth a fleet wide 0.0001% mpg improvement or 0.001% decrease in arrival time?  Moore's Law held for a long time because we started a good distance away from the theoretical limit but current driving AI is fairly good and there is comparatively little room for improvement.

But yes automatic improvement of your system without you having to do anything will be really cool.

I'm not sure that it matters.

It really matters whether it's better than humans and by what margin. I am nearly 100% confident that if we could have all cars turn into computer driven cars, immediately, that the number of driving deaths would drop by over an order of magnitude nearly instantaneously.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #791 on: October 01, 2016, 05:09:42 PM »
Moore's Law held for a long time because we started a good distance away from the theoretical limit but current driving AI is fairly good and there is comparatively little room for improvement.

I think there's an amazing amount of hubris in this sentence. 

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #792 on: October 01, 2016, 08:15:07 PM »
That is one of the main benefits of both Google's Car and Tesla's stuff. Every vehicle has exactly the same experience of every other vehicle.

Yeah, that's really neat--you don't drive your car for the day, but a million other people did, and your car improved because of it. 

The exponential growth potential is amazing.

Exponential growth but with significant diminishing returns.  A cars AI can only get so good at driving.  Teslas are about as good as a human in terms of deaths per mile and based on a youtube video I would call the system kludgey.  A driving AI 1000 times better than a good human and one 5000 times better are only sort of distinguishable and you would have to make subjective calls on there failure cases.  Two systems drove a gillion miles last year in the US; System A was involved in 3 fatalities, system B was involved in 5.  Which is a better system?  To decide you need to look at where they were used and the specifics of those 8 incidents and non-fatal injury rate and a dozen other parameters.  How many broken arms are worth a fleet wide 0.0001% mpg improvement or 0.001% decrease in arrival time?  Moore's Law held for a long time because we started a good distance away from the theoretical limit but current driving AI is fairly good and there is comparatively little room for improvement.

But yes automatic improvement of your system without you having to do anything will be really cool.

It's the concept of millions of X out there, sharing their learning with all the other ones that excites me.  The exponential growth of that, moreso than the specific implementation as it relates to self-driving cars, which is just one minor example.
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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #793 on: October 02, 2016, 11:05:42 AM »
Moore's Law held for a long time because we started a good distance away from the theoretical limit but current driving AI is fairly good and there is comparatively little room for improvement.

I think there's an amazing amount of hubris in this sentence.

Never say never and all that but I really have trouble seeing how there is continual orders of magnitude room for improvement in driving AI.  Maybe my vision of the end state is hopelessly constrained (hope so!) I dont see how driving AI can double in 'goodness' every year for decades on end as transistor density has.  Moore came up with his law in 1965 - Lyndon B Johnson was president.  In what manner could it continue to improve given the likelihood that it will be significantly safer than humans in the next hand full of years?

Currently 30k/year die in car related incidents, if driving AI halves that number each year it will take ~10 years to get fewer than 100 deaths per year.  That is what I mean by us starting nearer the limit.  Maybe it is that driving AI is reducing a finite value (30k/year) where other tech is growing up from a small value. 

"It really matters whether it's better than humans and by what margin. I am nearly 100% confident that if we could have all cars turn into computer driven cars, immediately, that the number of driving deaths would drop by over an order of magnitude nearly instantaneously."
I agree 100% as I said we are starting nearer the theoretical limit of driving AI, I think we will get the bulk of the benefit in the near future rather than it continuing to grow geometrically in goodness for decade after decade.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #794 on: October 02, 2016, 11:55:25 AM »
Never say never and all that but I really have trouble seeing how there is continual orders of magnitude room for improvement in driving AI.  Maybe my vision of the end state is hopelessly constrained (hope so!) I dont see how driving AI can double in 'goodness' every year for decades on end

Henry Ford supposedly said "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse."  Why is your vision of future AI driving constrained to approaching or incrementally improving the safety rates of human drivers?  There are so many other things wrong with cars that AI can potentially fix.

Imagine a world in which nobody owns a personal vehicle, but your smartphone can summon one to your current location in 30 seconds.  That vehicle travels at 150 mph without your supervision, and can deliver you to exactly where you need to go, not to a parking lot.  Oh, and it generates no carbon pollution, is totally silent, comes to your door pre airconditioned or heated and configured to your preferences for movies or music or workspace, and it can be a convertible or a moving truck depending on what you need today, and oh yes it's free to use.

Imagine a world without parking lots and roads taking up 85% of the surface area of every downtown district.  There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light.  There are no more traffic jams or rush hours.

Imagine a world in which every item is delivered to your door.  Groceries, furniture, the daily mail, everything you buy from places like amazon.  You don't ever need to go to the store again, unless you want to, because it's literally cheaper and faster to have everything delivered by robots.  Stores are just showrooms, places to go look and feel products, places to "shop" but not necessarily to buy.

Urban sprawl stops as less land is devoted to vehicles.  Maintenance and mechanical issues are automatically diagnosed and repaired.  There is no more road rage.  Air quality improves.  Drunk driving is non existent.  Innocent bystanders never die in a high speed police chase.  Houses are redesigned with useful space or storage, instead of 3 car garages.  No one is exposed to gasoline fumes and nobody dumps motor oil down storm drains.

The world is a better place with AI-controlled cars.  Having them learn to drive is just the first baby step in that process.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #795 on: October 02, 2016, 12:59:03 PM »
Never say never and all that but I really have trouble seeing how there is continual orders of magnitude room for improvement in driving AI.  Maybe my vision of the end state is hopelessly constrained (hope so!) I dont see how driving AI can double in 'goodness' every year for decades on end as transistor density has.  Moore came up with his law in 1965 - Lyndon B Johnson was president.  In what manner could it continue to improve given the likelihood that it will be significantly safer than humans in the next hand full of years?

Currently 30k/year die in car related incidents, if driving AI halves that number each year it will take ~10 years to get fewer than 100 deaths per year.  That is what I mean by us starting nearer the limit.  Maybe it is that driving AI is reducing a finite value (30k/year) where other tech is growing up from a small value. 

"It really matters whether it's better than humans and by what margin. I am nearly 100% confident that if we could have all cars turn into computer driven cars, immediately, that the number of driving deaths would drop by over an order of magnitude nearly instantaneously."
I agree 100% as I said we are starting nearer the theoretical limit of driving AI, I think we will get the bulk of the benefit in the near future rather than it continuing to grow geometrically in goodness for decade after decade.

What are you trying to optimize?

Deaths? Cars on road? Average commute time? Total gas economy? Arrival times?

I can think of TONS of things that self driving AI in cars could continue to refine over many years.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #796 on: October 02, 2016, 01:29:24 PM »
Never say never and all that but I really have trouble seeing how there is continual orders of magnitude room for improvement in driving AI.  Maybe my vision of the end state is hopelessly constrained (hope so!) I dont see how driving AI can double in 'goodness' every year for decades on end

Henry Ford supposedly said "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse."  Why is your vision of future AI driving constrained to approaching or incrementally improving the safety rates of human drivers?  There are so many other things wrong with cars that AI can potentially fix.

Imagine a world in which nobody owns a personal vehicle, but your smartphone can summon one to your current location in 30 seconds.  That vehicle travels at 150 mph without your supervision, and can deliver you to exactly where you need to go, not to a parking lot.  Oh, and it generates no carbon pollution, is totally silent, comes to your door pre airconditioned or heated and configured to your preferences for movies or music or workspace, and it can be a convertible or a moving truck depending on what you need today, and oh yes it's free to use.

Imagine a world without parking lots and roads taking up 85% of the surface area of every downtown district.  There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light.  There are no more traffic jams or rush hours.

Imagine a world in which every item is delivered to your door.  Groceries, furniture, the daily mail, everything you buy from places like amazon.  You don't ever need to go to the store again, unless you want to, because it's literally cheaper and faster to have everything delivered by robots.  Stores are just showrooms, places to go look and feel products, places to "shop" but not necessarily to buy.

Urban sprawl stops as less land is devoted to vehicles.  Maintenance and mechanical issues are automatically diagnosed and repaired.  There is no more road rage.  Air quality improves.  Drunk driving is non existent.  Innocent bystanders never die in a high speed police chase.  Houses are redesigned with useful space or storage, instead of 3 car garages.  No one is exposed to gasoline fumes and nobody dumps motor oil down storm drains.

The world is a better place with AI-controlled cars.  Having them learn to drive is just the first baby step in that process.

Yes.  Most of that is a business model (societal model?) based on a self driving car running software & sensors that will basically exists at a high level of maturity by the time reb's kid would have other wise be getting a learners permit.  I was replying to the idea that self driving car abilities will improve geometrically.  There is a limit to how well a car can be driven, or at least to any measurable value and I think we will hit that limit fairly quickly.  Will there be massive and ongoing societal changes that results from this tech-yes.

150 mph:  Maybe.  Drag force = 0.5*(mass density of air)*(vehicle speed)^2 * (drag coef)*(projected area).  No amount of computer smarts gets around this equation we have been trying for +100 years.  Then they say the Veyrons top speed is limited by the tires so while a cars AI might be able to drive supper fast it might not be cost effective to do so.

No traffic lights: Maybe.  They could definitely be reduced but pedestrians and bicycles?  Also I am not sure life and death driving decisions should be based on broadcast-shared information.  Current thinking with the larger UAVs is that even with mass adoption of position transmitting transponders an active sensor (radar) must verify the other vehicle location/heading, the risk of spoofing is just to big to trust broadcast data.  This might be something we could do but is probably best that we dont. 

"What are you trying to optimize?" that is the question!  But again it is largely wrapping business models around the tool of self driving cars.  And many of these will be contradictory, speed vs safety, auto-Uber wait time vs cars on road. 

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #797 on: October 02, 2016, 01:48:31 PM »
Imagine a world in which nobody owns a personal vehicle, but your smartphone can summon one to your current location in 30 seconds.
This isn't an AI problem, but rather an infrastructer one.  Once the AI is solved, this will be true almost immediately. Lyft has self-driving cars on the streets today.  Uber is developing its own too.


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That vehicle travels at 150 mph without your supervision,
Also not really an AI issue but an infrastructure (and physics) problem.  There are limits to right-of-way systems, esp. as long as ANY humans still use roadways (old-school drivers, bikes, pedestrians), not to mention animals, and limits to traction force of tires on pavement.
There's also a huge efficiency drop after about 50-60mph which is due to aerodynamic realities.  Design could help mitagate that (teardrop shaped cars), but AI can't.


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and can deliver you to exactly where you need to go, not to a parking lot.
again, lyft / uber model already covers that


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Oh, and it generates no carbon pollution, is totally silent,
technology, but not AI


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comes to your door pre airconditioned or heated and configured to your preferences for movies or music or workspace,
I give it one year


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and it can be a convertible or a moving truck depending on what you need today
:) like inspector gadgets car!


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, and oh yes it's free to use.
part economic, part social - a study done in SF found that the local bus and light rail system (muni) was spending more on plainclothes transit police, repair and maintenance of cash and ticket machines, paper passes, and other costs of collecting and enforcing tolls than they were bringing in in fares.  In other words, they would actually save money by making it free.
They never made it free though.  Because !!!!!!! socialism!!!!!!!!

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Imagine a world without parking lots and roads taking up 85% of the surface area of every downtown district.  There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light.
To me this is one of the most exciting parts, and I hope it happens in my lifetime, though I doubt it (because there will still be people with old fashioned cars for a long time), and it might not ever happen (how do bicycles navigate intersections?  Or does literally every crosswalk in the nation get replaced with an overpass?


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There are no more traffic jams or rush hours.
There would be dramatically less, and they wouldn't be as bad, but there are theoretical limits to how many cars can fit in one space at one time regardless of spacing and efficiency.  In some places that limit is far past.  We would have to also change the 9-5 standard work hours to be spread out evenly through the day (and maybe night) and also limit density of housing in urban areas and increase density of jobs in suburban areas.

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Imagine a world in which every item is delivered to your door.  Groceries, furniture, the daily mail, everything you buy from places like amazon.  You don't ever need to go to the store again, unless you want to, because it's literally cheaper and faster to have everything delivered
Already mostly true!  Even with delivery person salaries in the mix. 
Though who knows if drones, or even 3D printing, will mature fast enough that robot cars never get those jobs?


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Urban sprawl stops as less land is devoted to vehicles.  Maintenance and mechanical issues are automatically diagnosed and repaired.  There is no more road rage.  Air quality improves.  Drunk driving is non existent.
All you need is functional AI cars to become the standard, and it happens immideatly.


 
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Innocent bystanders never die in a high speed police chase.
Even if human drivers are banned on public roads, hobbyists and racers would still own and maintain driveable cars, just like people still operate ham radio in the days of pocket computers. Occasionally a criminal would use one (because of course if they are in a networked car not only are they tracked every second, but police could remotely shut the car down and probably lock the doors and windows too).  In order to catch / stop them, either special police "chase" AI would have to break some rules, or specially trained humans would take over. 


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Houses are redesigned with useful space or storage, instead of 3 car garages.
are there people who don't use the majority of garage space as storage!?


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No one is exposed to gasoline fumes and nobody dumps motor oil down storm drains.
If a viable alternative energy source can be found, it could run cars driven by humans or AI.  Gasoline can power cars run by humans or AI.  Two separate issues.

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The world is a better place with AI-controlled cars.
 
Agreed


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Having them learn to drive is just the first baby step in that process.
Just defending AlanStache here - the only idea here which would require further refinement than simply learning to drive, avoiding accidents, and maximizing fuel mileage and travel time, is this: "There are no more traffic lights, because those are archaic devices designed to let clumsy and slow humans negotiate intersections and computers can instead negotiate intersections at full speed while communicating with each other at the speed of light."
but the transition to 100% driverless cars won't be a software issue, and once that transition has been made this is a fairly easy software problem to solve.  I'm willing to bet we could do it in simulation form today.  The actual driving is the most more technical challenge
« Last Edit: October 02, 2016, 01:50:04 PM by Bakari »

ender

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #798 on: October 02, 2016, 01:58:53 PM »
Weather is an interesting factor, too.

Living in the midwest, while I don't trust that people are smart on icy road conditions I suspect most of the AI (being developed/tested in nearly perfect weather conditions) handles that well yet.

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Re: Robots and their impact on the future
« Reply #799 on: October 02, 2016, 03:16:50 PM »
Weather is an interesting factor, too.

Living in the midwest, while I don't trust that people are smart on icy road conditions I suspect most of the AI (being developed/tested in nearly perfect weather conditions) handles that well yet.


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