I will not step into a self driving car for the foreseeable future, until they are proven at least as safe as Human driven cars, which they are currently not!
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Master AI (Artificial Intelligence) Discussion/News Thread
- Thread starter amirm
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And even then there's not a shred of evidence or a guarantee
that this new powerful system will suddenly become self aware or "sentient"
Chr1
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A very minor concern (compared to the one above), is that of the sheer amount of energy used to generate fairly useless information for people.
There's a (admittedly, slightly fascistic) part of me that thinks AI should be primarily used for things that are clearly beneficial to the world.
ie curing diseases, advancing science, etc.
(Perhaps a quota system for the rest of us?)
Seems typically stupid that global warming is now probably being accelerated by billions of simultaneous AI searches on "how to make our butts look better on our Instagram feeds" etc.
(Slightly ironically: Doubtless AI is/will be very useful in the prevention, and countering of our ever increasing hurricanes, floods, landslides and forest fires.)
My (slightly authoritarian) 2c.
There's a (admittedly, slightly fascistic) part of me that thinks AI should be primarily used for things that are clearly beneficial to the world.
ie curing diseases, advancing science, etc.
(Perhaps a quota system for the rest of us?)
Seems typically stupid that global warming is now probably being accelerated by billions of simultaneous AI searches on "how to make our butts look better on our Instagram feeds" etc.
(Slightly ironically: Doubtless AI is/will be very useful in the prevention, and countering of our ever increasing hurricanes, floods, landslides and forest fires.)
My (slightly authoritarian) 2c.
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PristineSound
Major Contributor
Assuming the economy of scale is achieved and the return on investment is there. Absolutely yes.
HalSF
Senior Member
This is like the strategic planning of a degenerate cocaine fiend, gaming out how the correct steep future increase in dosage will finally, eventually produce health and happiness and permanent-pep. Collateral damage? Not my problem!
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Take that $4 trillion dollars and spend it on education (yes I know you can’t “take” the $4t) and you’ll see the benefits of such an undertaking,
You are going to ride sooner than you think. Shoot the messenger, not me.
New Swiss Re study: Waymo is safer than even the most advanced human-driven vehicles
Today, we’re sharing our new cutting-edge research with Swiss Re, one of the world’s leading reinsurers, analyzing liability claims related to collisions from 25.3 million fully autonomous miles driven by Waymo. The study uses auto liability claims aggregate statistics as a proxy for at-fault...
waymo.com
You are going to ride sooner than you think. Shoot the messenger, not me.
New Swiss Re study: Waymo is safer than even the most advanced human-driven vehicles
Today, we’re sharing our new cutting-edge research with Swiss Re, one of the world’s leading reinsurers, analyzing liability claims related to collisions from 25.3 million fully autonomous miles driven by Waymo. The study uses auto liability claims aggregate statistics as a proxy for at-fault...
The big question is whether you'll want to own one. Car ownership is already somewhat in decline, especially among the younger generation. Even without self-driving cars, the car ownership landscape is changing. Few people still commute to the office everyday.
I actually think self-driving cars are not the marvel many think they are. It's not one of the more complex AI use cases. And in the end it may be one final nail in the coffin for universal car ownership. As soon as I don't drive myself, I lose all interest in owning a car. They'll all drive and feel the exact same. No room for differentiation other than amenities and leather and wood and what not. I've always liked sportier cars (never owned a 4 door) and manual shifting. If I am being driven around, the car matters little to me. With Uber I of course prefer a good driver (and I am a very regular Uber user), with something like Waymo all rides will be the exact same. In a nutshell, to me self-driving EVs are something that will change an entire market and car culture. Sure I'll like the fact roads are safer... but then again, in 10 years we may be hovering around in self-flying drones to avoid the masses of self-driving EVs cramming our roads at slow, safe speeds.
This site also had a very good AI discussion over a year ago. Back then, my huge issue with generative AI aka LLMs was that it was pillaging human work without giving credit to the original authors. I am glad to see that -several lawsuits later- ChatGPT is now pretty decent at crediting sources. It gives me hope that with better governance, AI can make a very positive impact in many areas - and stop pretending it comes up with stuff entirely on its own.
I find all the money spent on robots that copy human form (head, 2 legs, 2 arms, hands) puzzling, surely that's not a great design for many functions that robots are useful for, the advantage lies in more specialized designs.
I use AI a lot. It makes me way more productive. But at the end of the day, the result is still 100% part of the pablolie brand.
Prompt programming is a great skill to learn, and there are many free courses on it. May I be training my replacement? Not anytime soon, I see AI still making basic mistakes when it comes to my field of work, and that's with stuff that's existed for a few years. So it's pretty useless when it comes to true innovation. But it's great at making us more productive and saves us time we can use for strategic stuff, rather than wrestling with existing and inefficient process that can be automated.
lucian
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basically all infrastructure today is build for humans. if you a humanoid robot - you can instantly use all existing infra structure and replace human workforce.
Just because it can walk on two legs doesn't mean it is in any way ready to replace a knowledge worker... if that was all, Australopithecus would still be in the workforce. :-D
lucian
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obviously. but that the reason they focus on humanoid robots. also a lot of manual/mechanical work also doesn't need a knowledge worker.
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I asked GROK for some audiophile information and told it that it sounded like a used car salesman with its mfg specific references. It gave me a conciliatory response. I got the impression it was telling me what I wanted to hear.
So there's a >$250k humanoid robot clumsily and slowly delivering a single part to a specialized "robot" that does the meaningful stuff... :-D
I think there is a lot of confusion about AI and automation. AI can be the brains of automation and LLM's are not a robots. I'll bet there were more than a few hundred people with a wide variety of skills and tens of thousands of "man hours", hundreds of pieces of fabrication and test equipment maned by technically and practically trained individuals that got to a functioning safe self driving car. Remember almost every function in cars is already digitally controlled. Sure AI is controlling the car it and that is quite a feat, and someday soon it will replace a lot of gig workers who's skill was not valued monetarily anyway. Picking crops is another job that may go by the wayside depending on the cost and availability of conventional workers and adaptability of the automation to the varied tasks. That first effort takes a lot time, people, money, technology, skill and a market, as these robots are not generic. Soon the AI might be the most developed thing in them. Who is going to design, build, program, operate and maintain them and just as the tractor replaced the horse, things will evolve, but so will the the trades and skill sets but not as negatively abruptly as people think. In the short term one of the few jobs that is in real jeopardy is commuter programming as there the AI output is not physical, it is computer language. The simple one hundred year old elevator keeps a lot people employed and I never worked anywhere where there wasn't some down time if there was one there. The prediction of mass unemployment due to AI does mesh with history. Only segments get hurt, as there are no more telephone operators, as an example, but there sure a lot of new product support people.
Anyway, off to dinner. Thanks for reading.
Anyway, off to dinner. Thanks for reading.
lucian
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yes. the same as mobile phones used to so big and heavy to be only mobile within a car. and now we carry a supercomputer which just couple of years in the past was as big as a whole building. or cars, or internet ... always same picture.
amazing on how people only take a current snapshot and completely ignore past and feature advancements.
Valvetubehead
Active Member
I’m confident this is part of how we evolve and adapt so quickly, simply by taking the prior technical advances for granted and putting them to work. AI will simply be put to work and have its name changed for the youngsters while we drive off the information super highway into the sunset.
somebodyelse
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A lot of this confusion is because of companies slapping the 'AI' label on anything they can get away with, rather than using a more specific description of the model they're using. The result is that most people aren't aware of the distinctions, and the differences in capability, let alone that they may be trained to do very specific things like formulate new concrete mixes with specific properties, use a robot arm to pick recyclables from a belt load of rubbish, or check scans for signs of one type of cancer. That's before we get to nobody being able to agree what AGI is...
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/07/...fine-and-thats-a-multibillion-dollar-problem/
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