Every new thing in society brings with it its own set of problems. With religion came holy wars. With coal energy came soot pollution. With booze came alcohol poisoning. With the Gameboy Color, we had battery-powered cartridges that eventually die and delete the save. With cell phones came cell phone use in the car. Plasma TVs have the problem of screen burn-in. With online gaming we got little brats making little brat noises over the chat channel.
But what about in the future? What kinds of problems do you think we might have from technology or knowledge advancements in the future? Perhaps with amazing advancements in the medical and nanotech fields, we'll have a tough time supporting the existence of so many immortals? Perhaps with the legalization of pot, we'll have the occasional school teacher coming in stoned? Perhaps with walls that are made up of computer monitors, we'll have really poor attention spans?
Personally, I always thought domestic robot abuse would become a problem. Think of your computer. Have you ever been mad at your computer? Have you ever struck your computer in a fit of rage? (If you're C++ programmer, I know for a fact that you have. And I feel your pain.) I think early robots will be much like computers in terms of user-friendliness. They won't simply "just work like they're supposed to", and you'll need to be specific to command them. I expect that there'll be a period in society where people will get so frustrated that they will beat their robots. If we ever figure out how to replicate sentience in AI, we'll need to adapt laws against domestic robot abuse. Honestly? I feel I may grow up to be a robot-beater, and that worries me.
What about you? What kind of future issues do you think we'll have?
But what about in the future? What kinds of problems do you think we might have from technology or knowledge advancements in the future? Perhaps with amazing advancements in the medical and nanotech fields, we'll have a tough time supporting the existence of so many immortals? Perhaps with the legalization of pot, we'll have the occasional school teacher coming in stoned? Perhaps with walls that are made up of computer monitors, we'll have really poor attention spans?
Personally, I always thought domestic robot abuse would become a problem. Think of your computer. Have you ever been mad at your computer? Have you ever struck your computer in a fit of rage? (If you're C++ programmer, I know for a fact that you have. And I feel your pain.) I think early robots will be much like computers in terms of user-friendliness. They won't simply "just work like they're supposed to", and you'll need to be specific to command them. I expect that there'll be a period in society where people will get so frustrated that they will beat their robots. If we ever figure out how to replicate sentience in AI, we'll need to adapt laws against domestic robot abuse. Honestly? I feel I may grow up to be a robot-beater, and that worries me.
What about you? What kind of future issues do you think we'll have?