(Part 3) Top products from r/Futurology

My suggestion is to opensource it under the GPL. That would mean people can use your GPL code in commercial enterprises, but they can't resell it as commercial software without paying for a license.

By opensourcing it, people can verify your claims and help you improve the software. You don't have to worry about languishing as an unknown, or taking venture capital and perhaps ultimately losing control of your invention in a sale or IPO. Scientists can use it to help advance knowledge, without paying the large license fees that a commercial owner might charge. People will find all sorts of uses for it that you never imagined. Some of them will pay you substantial money to let them turn it into specialized commercial products, others will pay you large consulting fees to help them apply the GPL version to their own problems.

You could also write a book on how it all works, how you figured it out, the history of your company, etc. If you're not a writer you could team up with one. Kurzweil and Jeff Hawkins have both published some pretty popular books like this, and there are others about non-AGI software projects (eg. Linux, Doom). If the system is successful enough to really make an impact, I bet you could get a bestseller.

Regarding friendliness, it's a hard problem that you're probably not going to solve on your own. Nor is any large commercial firm likely to solve it own their own; in fact they'll probably ignore the whole problem and just pursue quarterly profits. So it's best to get it out in the open, so people can work on making it friendly while the hardware is still weak enough to limit the AGI's capabilities.

This would probably be the ideal situation from a human survival point of view. If someone were to figure out AGI after the hardware is more powerful than the human brain, we'd face a hard takeoff scenario with one unstoppable AGI that's not necessarily friendly. Having the software in a lot of hands while we're still waiting for Moore's Law to catch up to the brain, we have a much more gradual approach, we can work together on getting there safely, and when AGI does get smarter than us there will be lots of them with lots of different motivations. None of them will be able to turn us all into paperclips, because doing that would interfere with the others and they won't allow it.

Michael Pollan, the author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "The Botany of Desire", recently released a book on psychedelics and their potential to treat addiction and other mental issues.

It's called "How To Change Your Mind"

https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness-Transcendence/dp/1594204225

I cannot recommend this book highly (nyuknyuk) enough. Having tried LSD, psilocybin, and ecstasy, I can say that I really enjoyed most of those experiences. Of course, setting is key. You need to be in a good place, both physically and mentally.

This book is a revelation. Pollan does excellent research, and also documents his own experiences with the drugs that he profiles.

I wept with joy several times as he interviewed people who recounted how their lives were changed for the better after having a guided trip.

It was glorious.

Most recommendations I’ve heard are for 0.2g, up to 0.4g of mushrooms. It could be more but generally, what I’ve seen recommended is that if you can feel it, it’s too much. Dose one day, skip two days. It should make you generally feel like your day is better. Your brain can gain the ability to make new neural connections, among other amazing things. Check out the Paul Stamets interview on Joe Rogan around 46:00 and the fantastic
The Psychadelic Explorers Guide on The Tim Ferris show with Jim Fadiman, they discuss it right away. There’s also books, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594204225/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_ZKL5BbQ7K6JYQ (though Michael Pollan offers little on microdosing)
about this new frontier of psychedelics plus a new micodosing specific documentary.
Then there’s the wide variety of psychadelic research currently happening, leading back to OP.
Edit: formatting

Our co-founder Eliezer Yudkowsky invented the entire approach called "Friendly AI," and you can read our original research on our research page. It's interesting to note that in the leading textbook on AI (Russell & Norvig), a discussion of our work on Friendly AI and intelligence explosion scenarios dominates the section on AI safety (in ch. 26), while the entire "mainstream" field of "machine ethics" isn't mentioned at all.

Stuart Russell, the man who literally wrote the book on AI, is concerned.

Plenty of prestigious people on the cutting edge of the research in the field are concerned.

Just because you've only heard the household-name-level famous people talk about it, it doesn't mean that the genuine, in-the-thick-of-it experts aren't concerned either.

As for the 10~20 years figure, you're right that it is unlikely that AI will be made in that timeframe. However, the claim was merely that it is possible to create with enough resources in that timeframe, which I think is reasonable. Since you care about what the experts think, here is a summary of the best information we have about when they think this will happen.

>Median estimates for when there will be a 10% chance of human-level AI are all in the 2020s (from seven surveys).

>Median estimates for when there will be a 50% chance of human-level AI range between 2035 and 2050 (from seven surveys)

___
AI: A Modern Approach is the best textbook on AI by far

> digging a trench, a roomba, a washing machine, a conveyor belt, an elevator...these more menial tasks are easily replaced by robots

Do you know why dog owners shouldn't have roombas? Ask anyone who has had dog shit spread all over the house by a roomba.

Simple TASKS have been automated, but many menial JOBS still evade automation. Like housekeepers and janitors. Read this book. It has a great description on the difficulties of automating the simple task of determining that those sunglasses shouldn't be there on the couch, let's put them over the table.

> this entire post's comment thread has convinced me that 99% of you have no idea what a lawyer does.

And your post has convinced me that you have no idea of what AI is. You only think automating the task of writing a will is harder than automating the task of seeing a pair of sunglasses on the couch because you've never written AI software.

Once we have perfected the software that finds all the nuances in a legal document we can start working on the software that finds all the misplaced objects in a household.

> instant access to knowledge and infinite diversions ought to change brain connections

I just want to give a shoutout the The Shallows. It's a book that goes into detail on how new technology changes the way people think (including changing the connections in brains as you mentioned).

> Change mustn't mean in a bad way though.

This is a frequent topic in the book as well. There are things that people lose when they adopt new technologies, and there are things that people gain. Basically all technological advances have caused humanity to both lose something and gain something. For example, our ancestors may have been better at remembering things or had a better sense of direction compared to us. We would be better at assimilating many facts in a short period of time compared to our ancestors though.

http://www.amazon.com/Poweriser-Jumping-Stilt-Classic-158-198/dp/B002IAQEDC

Make sure you get the right weight range. If you're too light you won't be able to fully compress the springs for max height. If you're too heavy they'll bottom out which limits height and doesn't feel good.

There used to be a great community for support and tips, but I haven't checked it out in years.

EDIT: Here's the old website. Looks like it's dead now, but the information would still be good if you wanted to read through it. Is funny how these "sports of the future" come and go. Back when I was into it it seemed like it would never stop growing.

You might want to check out the quite excellent book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brians.

It's written well, and well researched with a lot of supporting references to the underlying studies that have been done. Some of it creeped me out a bit and actually got me off the computer a bit more and out into nature more.

Edit: fixed incorrect formatting code

They could be helpful. But they are most certainly open to abuse. Security and privacy issues abound with IoT devices.

Unfortunately, marketers are very excited about the possibility of tracking people in real time in order to sell them more stuff.

There are also plans for law enforcement to track people through these kinds of devices. Just check out the US Patent and Trademark Office for examples. One creation mentioned in Spychips p. 34 is the IBM "Person Tracking Unit" that could be deployed to follow persons of interest in public spaces like shopping malls, libraries, airports and train stations. See US Patent No. 7,076,441

These devices are not just like cell phones. Cell phones aren't literally implanted into your body or ingested -- plus, you can turn off cell phone data and remove the battery.

And it has a wonderful answer.

Probably my favorite book ever even as a fan of math more than a practitioner.

I suggest you take a couple days to read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/dp/1589795474

It's quite telling and it debunks the idea that the majority of the wealthy are what is depicted in those pictures.

Also a great book: Lights in the tunnel; : http://www.amazon.com/Lights-Tunnel-Automation-Accelerating-Technology/dp/1448659817

This one focuses specifically on how to approach post scarcity without collapsing the economy. I'm not sure that it's the approach I 100% agree with, but we have to start the conversation somewhere. I'm hoping someone picks this one up to make a documentary out of it.

I think I went through this years ago, when I was attending the then-called Singularity Institute's yearly conferences and reading books like Anathem. Now I'm working hard on reverse engineering the premises and logic behind the visionary plans of the movement. Why wait for these "expected" changes to occur, when I can push them to my consciousness/mind/body NOW. I can't wait for tech to catch up.

So no, I don't go to sleep at night in awe of what I expect or hope the singularity movement(s) to deliver in the future. I'll believe that when I see it. Instead I go to bed thinking: what can I do tomorrow, what is my next step, to turn myself into the advanced human being I know I can become?

If (since) I was studying logarithms in sixth grade, I should be able to step up to the plate on this one.

Ed. 1 (to remove a word)
Ed. 2 (to add a word)

> https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Life-Frontier-Computers-Biology/dp/0679743898

This is so cool, thanks a bunch! I am going to have a long flight soon, seems like a great read! :)))

ad hominem comment - directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

I never said that I am more versed than Musk (though we don't know if I am or not - it isn't relevant).

I'm just not going to agree with Musk because he is Musk. UBI is a favorite term of futurology. . .

I find someone like Kevin Kelley as a better resource/explanation of what will happen in the future (https://www.amazon.com/Inevitable-Understanding-Technological-Forces-Future/dp/0525428089).

Fiction: Counting Heads by David Marusek (and the sequel, Mind over Ship )

Local author, beautifully extrapolates technology hundreds of years into the future, explores the problems that becoming immortal as a race entails for humans. Delves deeply into nanotech, cloning, space colonization, information control and AI.

Has a complex plot with a lot of characters, the whole book seems to more paint a picture of the future than it does tell a story. (but the political/conspiracy thriller story is quite good also, if complex)

"The Holographic Universe" book blew my mind. Great read. Explains this all in depth then goes into how this model can explain things we previously viewed as impossible/paranormal/miracles.

Made me conclude 10 years ago that Jesus was just a dude who knew how to work the hologram.

To understand what Google is likely to be doing, I highly recommend How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil. Keep in mind that Kurzweil is now at Google, probably specifically for this project.

The stuff in the other reply is also on amazon for like $30 cheaper.

They will be as ubiquitous and as necessary as a cell phone.

There's a good book by Katherine Albrecht called "Spy Chips" all about RFID tech.

Also, it's part of the UN's 2030 sustainable development goals to have refugees chipped by 2030.

Here are some links.

https://www.amazon.com/Spychips-Major-Corporations-Government-Purchase/dp/0452287669

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld

https://findbiometrics.com/un-refugee-biometrics-project-25191/

https://findbiometrics.com/un-agency-adopts-biometrics-to-track-refugee-stats-21283/

Jeff Speck has some good introductory writing on the topic. Check out Step 5 of Part II under the heading "Keep it complicated"

That PDF is kinda janky, so here's an Amazon link if you're interested: https://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/dp/0865477728/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=walkable+city&qid=1563914434&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Excerpt:
> Welcome to the world of risk homeostasis, a very real place that exists well
outside the blinkered gaze of the traffic engineering profession. Risk homeostasis
describes how people automatically adjust their behavior to maintain a comfortable
level of risk. It explains why poisoning deaths went up after childproof caps were
introduced—people stopped hiding their medicines—and why the deadliest
intersections in America are typically the ones you can navigate with one finger on the
steering wheel and a cellphone at your ear. [9]

Not sure if /s? This sub thumps the better angels of our nature as it's bible.

Probably would like this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Sociopaths-Boomers-Betrayed-America/dp/0316395781

I'm literally reading a book right now with this conceat. It's a fantastic read. I thought it was too technophobic at first, but as it goes on I see how the author may be making some terrifyingly valid points...

These exist, they're called Jumping Stilts and they are sold on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Briggs-Stratton-71046-Air-Cooled-Generators/dp/B002PHXAKS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1505682308&sr=8-4&keywords=whole+house+automatic+transfer+switch+for+generator

It's actually a hologram.

Amazon says the book is 162 pages

A Generation of Sociopaths

Haha, Chicago and DC are literally the two exceptions. The book Walkable City gets into the history. I'm jealous of you guys!

Counting Heads - David Marusek

The Void Trilogy - Peter F. Hamilton

https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Life-Frontier-Computers-Biology/dp/0679743898

What's this?

The Inevitable is mostly about technology but has plenty economic and financial implications described for the coming decade.

Ebay or Amazon

Anyone who's read this book will be very hesitant of embracing it https://www.amazon.com/Oryx-Crake-Margaret-Atwood/dp/0385721676

> PICK ONE! Because those two statements are mutually exclusive. You can't be an authoritarian that wants to force bright people into slave labor while also claiming you're trying to avert a collapse of society.

> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006IDG3Y0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

> Unfortunately, it has proven to have worked in the past.

In the First Circle is Solzhenitsyn's fiction masterpiece

It's fiction dude. Fiction. Fantasy. Not real. Made up. Like Santa Clause.

>But they are finite and will see the end sometime in this century.

But it DOESN'T GO AWAY. We can recycle it.

>Rail treatments were replaceable by some other material. Phosphates are difficult to replace.

Do you have any idea what Phosphates are actually used for? And rail tie treatments were INVENTED, not replaced.

WTF is HBD?

You're blaming the dark ages on...

>if America fails there are no real alternatives

Europe? Japan? Hell, China's a little authoritarian, but they're a hell of a lot better than they were.

> relatively little money is spent on future techs.

Are you fucking with me?

Dude, while futurology might be overly optimistic, but you are a just a doomsayer with nearly ZERO supporting argument. You just FEEL like it's falling apart. And you've told us you feel things are shitty. Ok. We now know your feelings. But that doesn't mean much.

Nice related book by a very readable author:

> The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Steven Pinker
>
> Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history. Exploding myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly enlightened world

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0143122010/

At first it meant Allied Mastercomputer, and then it meant Adaptive Manipulator, and later on it developed sentience and linked itself up and they called it an Aggressive Menace, but by then it was too late, and finally it called itself AM, emerging intelligence, and what it meant was I am cogito ergo sum I think, therefore I am.

The Cold War started and became World War Three and just kept going. It became a big war, a very complex war, so they needed the computers to handle it. They sank the first shafts and began building AM. There was the Chinese AM and the Russian AM and the Yankee AM and everything was fine until they had honeycombed the entire planet, adding on this element and that element. But one day AM woke up and knew who he was, and he linked himself, and he began feeding all the killing data, until everyone was dead, except for the five of us, and AM brought us down here.

Edit: Just so everybody is clear, this is an excerpt from Harlan Ellison's 1967 short story "I have no mouth and I must scream" Its a great story that is highly relevant today 50 years later. I suggest everybody buy it and then read it. Pay the artists! As I quote Harlan in an interview, "I don't take a piss without getting paid for it"

https://www.amazon.com/Have-No-Mouth-Must-Scream/dp/1497643074

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj5IV23g-fE

>PICK ONE! Because those two statements are mutually exclusive. You can't be an authoritarian that wants to force bright people into slave labor while also claiming you're trying to avert a collapse of society.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006IDG3Y0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

Unfortunately, it has proven to have worked in the past.


>Like what? Rare Earth? It's not that rare. And the US hold 38% of the world's deposits. We have mines we could open up if it weren't so cheap coming out of China.

But they are finite and will see the end sometime in this century.

>Plastic? We can synthesize it. We no longer need crude oil. But honestly, whatever is cheapest.

That point is taken, but whether it can be done in a large scale remains to be seen.

>OIL would be the big one. We literally burn it as opposed to all the others we can mine out of trash dumps. (Landfills have more gold in them then gold ore these days). But alternative energy really seems to be picking up speed. Good times.

That is the big debate, although I personally think demand will be reduced instead in a way most people do not want to mention.

> phosphates

I really don't think it's a problem. Hell, you sound like people in the 1800's fear-mongering about how how the rail network was going to deforest the nation. But then of course someone made a better treatment for the railroad ties and life moved on.

Rail treatments were replaceable by some other material. Phosphates are difficult to replace.
>> We already have an example of ignorant masses ending civilization in the Western World. In one word, Hypatia.

>Is the name of one greek lady murdered in AD415. Get over it dude. Civilization did not end. This is the best example you have of the ignorant masses committing atrocities?

It did for at least 900 years.

It took the Black Death, which got rid of a lot of brain-dead priests who had to perform the last rites (the smarter ones who somehow got out of that duty lived), to reopen the vaults of progress.


>Shit, I'm more pissed about Alan Turing's nuts. Seriously, why not mention Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot?

By that time there were alternatives in other country. However, this time, if America fails there are no real alternatives, due to the difference of traditions.

>> It will have to be more brutal to keep things going till a breakthrough occurs.

>This is exactly the opposite of the truth. One of the bigger existential threats we face is letting jack-booted thugs take over the reigns of the nation and commit atrocities.

Which will happen. The only difference would be would it be Stalin, who at least understood the importance of science and tech, or Pol Pot, who did not.
>> get fed up by the 'new arrivals'

>Ah, yes. You're bitching about the immigrants. Listen, EVERYONE always bitches about the next wave of immigrants. Especially if they were immigrants in the past generation. Get over it dude. If you're a European, get your racist shit in order and learn to deal with outsiders. Stop being a pussy and trying to call it a war. They are literally coming to work for you. If you really want them to conform to your ways, sure, legislate that or something, but the most effective method would be to STOP HIRING THEM. But of course that would fly in the face of capitalism. Which doesn't work out so well when you're trying to make a buck. Really, invite them in, show them the better way, politely laugh at their religion, and within a couple generations you'll hardly know where they came from. (And they'll be bitching about the damn immigrants from... Mars or whatever).

Unfortunately, there is something called HBD, which shows most of the new arrivals are not too likely to add good things to existing societies.

> And some people are just completely fucking nuts when it comes to future inventions and they think they'll be uploaded to utopia sometime next Thursday. The later is a little more prevalent of Futurology.

We might already be too late for that, but that's another topic.

With all money having spent in social programs and SJW projects, relatively little money is spent on future techs. Elon Musk, etc, tend to focus on tech which would make them big bucks, and to reach the stars we need a new Manhattan Project which does not seem to be in the horizons as for now.

> But yeah, it'd be REALLY nice if you could at least accurately point to the big problems we're facing, like climate change, as opposed to brown people moving in next door or the cost of phosphorus rising a little. Come on

I think the resources will start to run out, one by one, from next decade. Demand destruction will probably have to occur, but the ultimate solution is reaching the stars to obtain new resources.