So what do we do when when nobody has a job?

[The Mad Monk]

You know, I really like Freefall. The author seems to have really thought about the AI question.

[Aeson]

Wonder why we programmed robots to realize things.

So that they will be able to warn us when we are going to do something very stupid that will jeopardize the fate of humanity.

[N35t0r]

Freefall

[Dr Strangelove]

What if the robots become religious?

[The Mad Monk]

If there is no Robot Heaven, where do all the calculators go?

[Lorizael]

What if the robots become religious?

There's a good deal of evidence to suggest that religious experiences are something our brains are programmed to have. So robots would only become religious if (a) we programmed them to be or (b) religion emerged spontaneously and unpredictably from a complex system. But if we grant that novel robot behavior can emerge with the right inputs, why would that behavior necessarily have anything in common with our own novel behaviors? I think it's much more likely that if robots start doing things we didn't explicitly program them to do, whatever they do isn't going to look anything like the types of things we do.

[Aeson]

... don't be surprised if all the entities the robots worship as Gods turn out to be programmers/hackers.

[rah]

TRON

[pchang]

Users are useless

[The Mad Monk]

Users are users.

User.

[Dr Strangelove]

I've just begun rewatching Battlestar Gallactica. Robot religion was a major part of the plot.

What if one company takes a major lead in the development of orbots with true artificial intelligence and he programs in a reverence for human life, but especially for his own life?

What if he then programs in sets of criteria to distinguish good humans from bad humans?

[DaShi]

Like Beemo?

[Dr Strangelove]

Hmmm................ Maybe more like Gort.

[notyoueither]

You're forgetting that the social welfare expenditures will have to be spread over 4 to 5 times the number of people than the number who are sustained on social welfare expenditures today. Also, who says that the employed will make so much more just because there are fewer employed? The income may mostly go to corporations. If you jack up their taxes to 90% I guarentee you that they will move their headquarters somewhere beyond your reach.

Maybe you could effectively tax the shareholders on income. Just an idea.

[Dr Strangelove]

So the major shareholders move to Cayman Islands, Bahamas, etc., etc. Remember the proposed 70% income tax in France?