Future Timeline

AGI will probably destroy the ad industry and consumerism in the long run. Why? First, keep in mind that AGIs won't be beholden to the same cognitive limitations and emotions as humans are. They will have a sharp grasp of what their actual "needs" are as opposed to humans, who lack such understanding and also often conflate their "needs" with their "wants." For that reason, AGIs won't spend their scarce resources buying goods and services that don't actually benefit them. Humans have strong drives to improve their social status, and, less frequently, have compulsions to buy specific things again and again, which leads to a lot of spending on non-essential things. AGIs will lack those impulses.

Second, AGIs will be much smarter and able to remember things much better than humans, so they will be able to exhaustively research essential goods and services before buying one. Inferior providers will be identified quickly and driven out.

Here's a small example of how this will work: Imagine there are drain cleaning liquids made by two companies. "Brand A" has colorful, attention-grabbing packaging and is endorsed by a celebrity. "Brand B" has bland, gray packaging and is endorsed by no one. They are the same price.

Humans prefer to buy Brand A because of irrelevant factors like the colorful packaging (which the ad agency determined in lab tests is appealing to the human visual cortex) and the celebrity endorsement. AGIs prefer to buy Brand B because, in carefully conducted lab tests, it unclogged drains better than Brand A.

Initially, Brand A dominates the market because all plumbers are human, and they have human buying preferences. However, as machines take over plumbing work, Brand B comes to dominate. Eventually, there are so few human plumbers left that Brand A can't capitalize on economies of scale anymore, so it declares bankruptcy. Any remaining human plumbers are left with Brand B as the sole option for drain cleaner.

This same process will happen for enormous numbers of goods and services across the whole economy.

Imagine if brain implants allowed us to telepathically experience what other humans were experiencing. If you were ever feeling bad, you could mentally jump into another person's mind who, at that very moment in some part of the world, was having an amazing experience.

funkervogt wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:29 pm Imagine if brain implants allowed us to telepathically experience what other humans were experiencing. If you were ever feeling bad, you could mentally jump into another person's mind who, at that very moment in some part of the world, was having an amazing experience.

Then what are your neurons doing whilst you are “absent”? Keeping your body as still as a statue?

TrueAnimationFan wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 7:40 pm

funkervogt wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:29 pm Imagine if brain implants allowed us to telepathically experience what other humans were experiencing. If you were ever feeling bad, you could mentally jump into another person's mind who, at that very moment in some part of the world, was having an amazing experience.

Then what are your neurons doing whilst you are “absent”? Keeping your body as still as a statue?

Autopilot.

In the future, once compatible animal organs or lab-grown human organs are mature technologies, human recipients will demand the very best organ for transplantation into their bodies. And since it probably requires the same resources to make an organ whose "quality level" is in the 99th percentile as it does to make one in the 50th percentile, the labs will only produce the highest-quality organs. They may even have superhuman levels of performance.

Organ replacement will become a way for average people to upgrade themselves, one part at a time, to being 99th percentile humans or even superhumans.

funkervogt wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 2:11 pm In the future, once compatible animal organs or lab-grown human organs are mature technologies, human recipients will demand the very best organ for transplantation into their bodies. And since it probably requires the same resources to make an organ whose "quality level" is in the 99th percentile as it does to make one in the 50th percentile, the labs will only produce the highest-quality organs. They may even have superhuman levels of performance.

Organ replacement will become a way for average people to upgrade themselves, one part at a time, to being 99th percentile humans or even superhumans.

On second thought, I can see how there could still be a market for "average" organs. Let's assume that cloning labs only try to make 99th percentile organs. However, in vitro conditions are not entirely under their control, so it's common for something to go slightly wrong in the growth process, resulting in organs that are still fully functional and healthy, but only in the 50th percentile of quality. Rather than throw them away, the organ companies sell them at a discount.

I heard this is why there are different grades of GPUs made by the same company.

I believe a "deep state" has existed in America for decades, and possibly centuries, though I also don't consider this to be a controversial or partisan-leaning thought. The Deep State is merely a collection of powerful, unelected members of the U.S. government bureaucracy (including the military and spy agencies) who have their own interests and have ways to advance them, even in the face of opposition from powerful elected politicians, including the President. Their tactics for doing this include withholding information, strategically leaking information to the media, and deliberately slowing down projects they don't agree with.

The Deep State's members aren't all aware of one other, their ranks are continuously changing, they don't all agree with each other, and they are not all-powerful. I suspect they form shifting alliances with one another and with people outside of the government (e.g. - rich capitalists from specific industries, heads of news media companies, influential celebrities) to accomplish their objectives. Other democratic countries have also long had their own Deep States.

Though our first instinct is to fear the Deep State and to want it eliminated, it serves as a useful check on the power of politicians. Once intelligent machines replace human bureaucrats, the Deep State will disappear, and extreme policies enacted by people like Trump will find less resistance to implementation.

funkervogt wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 8:06 pm I believe a "deep state" has existed in America for decades, and possibly centuries, though I also don't consider this to be a controversial or partisan-leaning thought. The Deep State is merely a collection of powerful, unelected members of the U.S. government bureaucracy (including the military and spy agencies) who have their own interests and have ways to advance them, even in the face of opposition from powerful elected politicians, including the President. Their tactics for doing this include withholding information, strategically leaking information to the media, and deliberately slowing down projects they don't agree with.

The Deep State's members aren't all aware of one other, their ranks are continuously changing, they don't all agree with each other, and they are not all-powerful. I suspect they form shifting alliances with one another and with people outside of the government (e.g. - rich capitalists from specific industries, heads of news media companies, influential celebrities) to accomplish their objectives. Other democratic countries have also long had their own Deep States.

Though our first instinct is to fear the Deep State and to want it eliminated, it serves as a useful check on the power of politicians. Once intelligent machines replace human bureaucrats, the Deep State will disappear, and extreme policies enacted by people like Trump will find less resistance to implementation.

Deep State = Elites

funkervogt wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 8:06 pm Once intelligent machines replace human bureaucrats, the Deep State will disappear, and extreme policies enacted by people like Trump will find less resistance to implementation.

Welp, that's the most terrifying thought of the month.

Inmate escapes prison by "crab walking" up the wall.


It will be easy for robots to do this kind of thing. Normal barriers to human movement will be much less effective against them.

Here's an interesting news clip about The British Library and its automated warehouse of books and periodicals:


It makes me wonder how far we are from having virtual libraries full of 1:1 scans of random physical objects. A perfect scan of a book, with all the text and illustrations on the right pages is a start. Imagine there being other types of items, like every kind of ballpoint pen or IKEA desk ever made. In the far future, one disk drive could contain the 3D data on every kind of manufactured good there ever was.

If you had cybernetic brain and body implants, then you could use your own thoughts to precisely control your own brain activity. For example, by thinking about it, you could tell your implant to stimulate the release of adrenaline into your bloodstream. At will, you could induce pain insensitivity and enhanced strength.

Combat robots with advanced vision will make all but the best camouflage obsolete. Even if they don't have heat vision, their normal-spectrum vision will be so sharp that they'll be able to tell camouflaged human soldiers and vehicles apart from the background. Minute differences in colors and patterning between the camouflage and whatever is behind them will be noticed instantly, as will uncovered parts of human soldiers that reveal their bare skin.

I predict this will drive the creation and adoption of morphing camouflage fabrics, which will be comprised of something like e-ink embedded with tiny cameras. The cameras will watch the immediate surroundings and tell the rest of the fabric what colors and patterns to adopt to blend in.

Related:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/decoy-arms-r ... 38570.html

funkervogt wrote: ↑Sat Oct 14, 2023 5:07 pm Combat robots with advanced vision will make all but the best camouflage obsolete. Even if they don't have heat vision, their normal-spectrum vision will be so sharp that they'll be able to tell camouflaged human soldiers and vehicles apart from the background. Minute differences in colors and patterning between the camouflage and whatever is behind them will be noticed instantly, as will uncovered parts of human soldiers that reveal their bare skin.

I predict this will drive the creation and adoption of morphing camouflage fabrics, which will be comprised of something like e-ink embedded with tiny cameras. The cameras will watch the immediate surroundings and tell the rest of the fabric what colors and patterns to adopt to blend in.

Related:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/decoy-arms-r ... 38570.html

When combat robots get that good, human soldiers will no longer be on the battlefield outside of nations that can't afford robot soldiers anyways.
Although opposing robot combatants will try to camouflage to hide from each other.

Machines will improve animal welfare on farms by continuously monitoring them for disease or injury, and treating them early, before it gets severe.

Once video games get lifelike as far as the human senses can perceive, graphics improvements will plateau. That's kind of a relief. Thanks to Moore's Law, the hardware needed to deliver that level of performance will get cheaper each month. Eventually, everyone will be able to afford it.

Robots will be real-life MacGuyvers who will be able to creatively use any materials at hand for purposes that most humans wouldn't expect. Leaving one of them alone in a room for a while could end in a big surprise.

There will be a surge in "old" UFO sightings once AI scans through the billions of photos humans have uploaded to the internet and finds abnormal things in the skies that we all missed.

funkervogt wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2023 9:32 pm There will be a surge in "old" UFO sightings once AI scans through the billions of photos humans have uploaded to the internet and finds abnormal things in the skies that we all missed.

Hell, not UFOs only.

Someday, any android will be able to sit down at a piano and play as well as one of the greatest human masters. This might be a cool trick to have it do when your bored at home.