TheDarkness

A father buys a robot that slaps people when they lie.
 
He decides to test it out at dinner one night. The father asks his son what he did that afternoon.
 
The son says, "I did some schoolwork."
 
The robot slaps the son.
 
The son says, "Ok, Ok. I was at a friend's house watching movies."
 
Dad asks, "What movie did you watch?"
 
Son says, "Toy Story."
 
The robot slaps the son.
 
Son says, "Ok, Ok, we were watching a dirty movie."
 
Dad says, "What? At your age I didn't even know what dirty movies were."
 
The robot slaps the father.
 
Mom laughs and says, "Well, he certainly is your son."
 
The robot slaps the mother.
 
Anyway, robot for sale.

TheDarkness is twenty-third in line for the throne of Lithuania, should they ever decide to return to the monarchy.

This is true, I've been sending them.  
 
TheDarkness is the priestly head of the Call of Cthulhu cluck. 

TheDarkness was often graded down in English class for run-on sentences.

You got a problem with old?
 
 
 

TheDarkness hates the film Pitch Black as Riddick tells people to stay in the light

Trust Ivanova. Trust yourself. Anyone else? Shoot 'em.

Don't pay the ferryman, until he gets you to the other side.

In agreement with Lawnmower Boy, there seems to be this idea that the 'upper end' of skills is where the problems will lie for automation. I tend to disagree.
 
The entirety of all modern legal systems in the world are much easier to put in a computer than to emulate a more competent Lucy pulling chocolates from a production line. Ad hoc solutions abound in the manufacturing world, if this line is not working properly, that does not mean the best production choice is to stop that line, there may be no choice but to keep running it and having people separating things by hand and moving them by pallete jack to the area they need to go, and then, once the distribution goals of the day are reached, the line can be repaired.
 
In that process, probably the easiest part to automate would be defining the distribution goals. Probably the hardest would be the robot that has to now take things off of the line that are actually meant for other lines, find somewhere to put it, send it off and put an empty pallete in its place, stack a series of boxes whose shape and size cannot be predicted ahead of time so that they won't fall off the skid, etc.
 
That's what happens when one scanner goes out, or the system behind that scanner. If the scanner is toast, stopping the line may not be an option, and another scanner may take time to arrive by robotic car, dealing with traffic situations caused by weather.
 
In point of truth, I'm not sure we wouldn't be far better off with robotic lawyers whose cases are presented by actors, and I suspect this would be far simpler than manual labor robots.
 
Don't even get me started on contracting. If the robots have any programming that requires things to be up to code, EVERYONE, EVERYONE would find their house torn down the first time they tried to remodel anything. Which is probably part of the robot overlords' plans. Then, of course, it's to the HEMA camps with all of us.
 
Mining is another area where I could see it being problematic. Really, any manual labor tends to involve an imperfect walking environment, no matter the initial design of said environment, and, let's be clear, computers effectively mastered chess long before they could walk like a toddler on perfectly flat ground, much less tight quarters. The EASIEST tasks for a computer are not those involving physical motion at all. I think we project our own views on what is 'highly skilled jobs' in a way that would make no sense to a theoretical sentient computer.

It's a trick. Get an axe.

It's a trick. Get an axe.

Wasn't that your favorite Bond film?

I will begin bringing things over soon. This displays an aspect of my Belbin profiling (analyses the role you play in a team). I scored 0 in "finishing/completing". I am not the guy who crosses the t's, dots the i's and ensures everything is delivered. I am, apparently a mix of what they call Plant (creative, unorthodox and generators of ideas) and Shaper (people who challenge the team to improve).
 
What that seems to mean is that I am incredibly excited about new stuff, want to introduce it, want to keep tinkering until it is good enough to do the job it is intended for and then loses interest in the last bits that might make it usable for everyone else...
 
:-)
 
So I a tinkering and solving problems but not packaging up and bring the solutions back to the boards...
 
I will force myself to overcome my natural inclinations and in time will continue posting character solutions here.
 
 
Doc
 
PS: this post is an exercise in self-shaming. Part of my process to overcome that lack of finishing by making public promises...

In agreement with Lawnmower Boy, there seems to be this idea that the 'upper end' of skills is where the problems will lie for automation. I tend to disagree.
 
The entirety of all modern legal systems in the world are much easier to put in a computer than to emulate a more competent Lucy pulling chocolates from a production line. Ad hoc solutions abound in the manufacturing world, if this line is not working properly, that does not mean the best production choice is to stop that line, there may be no choice but to keep running it and having people separating things by hand and moving them by pallete jack to the area they need to go, and then, once the distribution goals of the day are reached, the line can be repaired.
 
In that process, probably the easiest part to automate would be defining the distribution goals. Probably the hardest would be the robot that has to now take things off of the line that are actually meant for other lines, find somewhere to put it, send it off and put an empty pallete in its place, stack a series of boxes whose shape and size cannot be predicted ahead of time so that they won't fall off the skid, etc.
 
That's what happens when one scanner goes out, or the system behind that scanner. If the scanner is toast, stopping the line may not be an option, and another scanner may take time to arrive by robotic car, dealing with traffic situations caused by weather.
 
In point of truth, I'm not sure we wouldn't be far better off with robotic lawyers whose cases are presented by actors, and I suspect this would be far simpler than manual labor robots.
 
Don't even get me started on contracting. If the robots have any programming that requires things to be up to code, EVERYONE, EVERYONE would find their house torn down the first time they tried to remodel anything. Which is probably part of the robot overlords' plans. Then, of course, it's to the HEMA camps with all of us.
 
Mining is another area where I could see it being problematic. Really, any manual labor tends to involve an imperfect walking environment, no matter the initial design of said environment, and, let's be clear, computers effectively mastered chess long before they could walk like a toddler on perfectly flat ground, much less tight quarters. The EASIEST tasks for a computer are not those involving physical motion at all. I think we project our own views on what is 'highly skilled jobs' in a way that would make no sense to a theoretical sentient computer.

Can I just say that this thread has become much more interesting and enlightening as it's moved away from Donald Trump and into deeper territory. Thank you all for the stimulating discussion.

A lot of editing TheDarkness did in MAD Magazine ended up in USA Today.

<pedant>
Those 30 year lifespans are skewed by extremely high infant mortality.
</pedant>

Sigh. Document review--which I do--is looking at a significant reduction in personnel requirements, as predictive coding and technology assisted review get steadily better. This does NOT mean that new jobs will open up for those superfluous reviewers. It's possible, on the margins, that automation may enhance the capability of small firms and solo practitioners, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the legal job market will shift to accommodate the displaced knowledge workers. Ditto for a dozen other knowledge worker fields. This IS different from other historical incidences of automation. This wave is studying and replicating the most sophisticated analytical and cognitive processes into algorithms to be replicated and emulated by software. It's not the printing press or word processing. It's legal analysis and argument,neuro surgery, engineering design, stock trading, everything humans do that can be broken down into steps and processes. It's not intuitively obvious that the job displacement problem will take care of itself. Now, short term, I agree with you that a tight labor market is necessary to increase wages. But longer term, over the next 20-40 years, automation of labor is a serious problem that needs to be taken seriously.

They're always hiring at the soylent green plant.

So I killed Windows! Cool. Mac user since 92.
 
The Darkness uses his Linux hacker skills to monitor 4Chan & Anonymous.

Definitely didn't miss the tea party comparison here anyway. I posted comparative photos up thread.  
The media reference is a little non-nuanced, when you look at what Fox (admittedly the largest non-liberal or centrist media organization) was doing in relation to Obama from 2008-2015. Stewart made a killing just deconstructing their inaccurate and inflammatory rhetoric for years.
 
This is just the continuation of a trend I don't particularly care for, the politicization of media and a move away from journalism. It's just a steady acceleration, so more evident with each subsequent cycle (an admittedly subjective observation).
 
I didn't like it then, and am not a huge fan now. Actual concerning factual issues get lost in the noise, and savvy individuals make use of that to avoid an informed populace.

I'll just tell you what I am told when I have insomnia.
 
"Why don't you just go to sleep"
 
Doesn't help you either huh  

I think the last few weeks have put the last nails in the coffin of the theory that Trump actually is trolling everyone else. He's responding like he's been trolled at every turn. The idea that he is brilliantly distracting everyone from his main goals is entirely at odds with the fact that almost all his goals have faced trouble from both sides of the fence, and that he spends a huge amount of his energy on responding to every action, which is exactly what a troll doesn't do.

I think the last few weeks have put the last nails in the coffin of the theory that Trump actually is trolling everyone else. He's responding like he's been trolled at every turn. The idea that he is brilliantly distracting everyone from his main goals is entirely at odds with the fact that almost all his goals have faced trouble from both sides of the fence, and that he spends a huge amount of his energy on responding to every action, which is exactly what a troll doesn't do.

I think the last few weeks have put the last nails in the coffin of the theory that Trump actually is trolling everyone else. He's responding like he's been trolled at every turn. The idea that he is brilliantly distracting everyone from his main goals is entirely at odds with the fact that almost all his goals have faced trouble from both sides of the fence, and that he spends a huge amount of his energy on responding to every action, which is exactly what a troll doesn't do.