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Did 1880s people have to merge with assembly lines? I think you're being fairly dramatic and too "/r/futurology" here. The whole point of technology is to crea

Did 1880s people have to merge with assembly lines? I think you're being fairly dramatic and too "/r/futurology" here. The whole point of technology is to create tools to make our lives easier, not to become tools. People won't desire this and pushing this kind of pressure on people seems like a recipe for revolt against the capitalist system that has thus far provided so much wealth. The assembly line works for us, we don't want to become an assembly line ourselves and its ludicrous to think such reasoning will lead to extinction. This is a bit like saying that the Olympics will be nothing but a steroids showcase event because everyone will take steroids. If anything, dissuading people from standing up for their liberty and basic humanity seems to be the best route toward extinction to me.

dogma1138 10y ago
No, but like with any other performance enchanting utility it's going to be effectively peer pressure. If AI+human will be better than just AI people will "merge" with it at that point if it's a true AI you might as well be a different species to them as you'll likely won't be able to even communicate with them after a while.
- deleted 10y ago
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- ajmurmann 10y ago
  Yes, having have to get a brain-machine connection implant before we've had a long time to observe safety and side effects has been a fear of mine for many years.
- red75prime 10y ago
  Mysterious superintelligent AIs, which are too smart to communicate with baseline humans. I think this is just a plot device for post singular fiction. You just can't write superAI explaining its own behavior, because you aren't smart enough. The best you can do is write about mysterious AI, which can't communicate with you or can't explain its own actions because they are too complex to explain. Returning to your post, I think that human-AI hybrids will be perfectly able to communicate or explain their plans to baseline humans (merging with AI should enhance communication capabilities, not hamper them). They could have problems explaining their feelings, thought processes, perceptions, as those things may not correspond to anything baseline human experiences. They could have no reasons to talk to baseline humans at all. But it is not inability to communicate.
gervase 10y ago
He did specify "in the long run", which I think is probably true as the timescales get longer. I doubt anyone would argue that humanity would live lives relatively unchanged from the present say, 3000 years from now. So it's really just a matter of arguing about 'when' and not 'if'. I'd also like to point out that although we didn't "become" the assembly line, employees certainly have become more replaceable in many of the jobs impacted by the assembly line. Depending on the job, some employees have become the metaphorical "cog in the machine", and can be replaced by other employees with minimal training, as compared to the artisan-based system that predated mass production. I certainly see your point, however, and I truly hope that we can maintain our liberty and humanity as technology increases, instead of regressing into a kind of dystopian neo-feudalism.
Banthum 10y ago
We kind of do merge with our technology, though. People are fuzzy-bounded; we're part of our environment and it's part of us, especially in the mental domain. In the physical domain glasses, notebooks (offloaded brain memory), telephones (merged voice) are physically merged technologies. In the mental sphere I feel I can say that Wikipedia and the Internet are in some sense merged parts of my mind. They are part of my thought processes and they were an essential ingredient in forming my thought processes too. Take away all my writing and reading and I really would be a different entity, mentally.

dogma1138 10y ago

No, but like with any other performance enchanting utility it's going to be effectively peer pressure. If AI+human will be better than just AI people will "merge" with it at that point if it's a true AI you might as well be a different species to them as you'll likely won't be able to even communicate with them after a while.

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ajmurmann 10y ago
Yes, having have to get a brain-machine connection implant before we've had a long time to observe safety and side effects has been a fear of mine for many years.
red75prime 10y ago
Mysterious superintelligent AIs, which are too smart to communicate with baseline humans. I think this is just a plot device for post singular fiction. You just can't write superAI explaining its own behavior, because you aren't smart enough. The best you can do is write about mysterious AI, which can't communicate with you or can't explain its own actions because they are too complex to explain. Returning to your post, I think that human-AI hybrids will be perfectly able to communicate or explain their plans to baseline humans (merging with AI should enhance communication capabilities, not hamper them). They could have problems explaining their feelings, thought processes, perceptions, as those things may not correspond to anything baseline human experiences. They could have no reasons to talk to baseline humans at all. But it is not inability to communicate.

gervase 10y ago

He did specify "in the long run", which I think is probably true as the timescales get longer. I doubt anyone would argue that humanity would live lives relatively unchanged from the present say, 3000 years from now. So it's really just a matter of arguing about 'when' and not 'if'. I'd also like to point out that although we didn't "become" the assembly line, employees certainly have become more replaceable in many of the jobs impacted by the assembly line. Depending on the job, some employees have become the metaphorical "cog in the machine", and can be replaced by other employees with minimal training, as compared to the artisan-based system that predated mass production. I certainly see your point, however, and I truly hope that we can maintain our liberty and humanity as technology increases, instead of regressing into a kind of dystopian neo-feudalism.

Banthum 10y ago

We kind of do merge with our technology, though. People are fuzzy-bounded; we're part of our environment and it's part of us, especially in the mental domain. In the physical domain glasses, notebooks (offloaded brain memory), telephones (merged voice) are physically merged technologies. In the mental sphere I feel I can say that Wikipedia and the Internet are in some sense merged parts of my mind. They are part of my thought processes and they were an essential ingredient in forming my thought processes too. Take away all my writing and reading and I really would be a different entity, mentally.