2045: The Rise of the Machines?

[Nickdfresh]

It's like the tertiary stage of syphilis has over taken your higher functions.

Higher functions? I never had those.

[Kristy]

I concur.

[Nickdfresh]

Or Cuntcur

[Nitro Express]

Always been the economic model that works when civilizations are on the verge of bankruptcy



Naw, they're for idiots like Nick who Wiki in order to make up for their obvious lack of intelligence.

If you control the bond markets you control everything. It's that simple. There is no free market. What drives the market is interest rates and those are decided by a few people in a back room. Now it's gotten so corrupt the big boys loan each other money at 0% interest and drive the stock market up. We have record highs in stock prices in a bad economy. Because of privately owned central banking we have two economies. One for the average guy and one for the elite. If we could get zero percent loans we would be doing pretty well. Oh well, have cheap beer on a Rollback at Walmart and some food stamps, Bubba don't care. He only care when you take the beer and television away.

[FORD]

Hahaha

When I saw you had replied to this thread I thought 'how is he going to crowbar this into being about banking?'

I was expecting you to say ATM machines were going to attack people...

Well.... a lot of those machines are made by Diebold, so that's always a possibility.

There's also the fact that many of them are still running Windows XP as an operating system, so that raises some security issues.

[FORD]

Fucking AYE RIGHT!! My classic piece of American Motors greatness. Oh, now for my Gremlin collection!

You have to wonder about the designer of those AMC models (Pacer/Gremlin/Matador/etc.)

Was it somebody who did too many drugs, or somebody who didn't do enough. In the case of the Latter (pun intentional), was it George Romney trying to make cars on Earth that looked like what he imagined they drove back home on Kolob?

[Nitro Express]

The machines have taken over already. It's called trading algorithms. Those who control the trading computers control the markets. In fact there is no free market anymore. You guys constantly complain about the 1% but yet have no idea what they do. Banking is everything. Try making any project work without financing. Have a lot to loan and see how much you control.

Those who think banking is just another form of business have no idea how the real world works.

ATM machines please. Small potatoes. Snack dispensers for the little guy.

[Nickdfresh]

Will US cyborgs be the next to deploy?
Allison Barrie

By Allison Barrie
Published July 07, 2014
FoxNews.com


Tiny walking bio-bots are powered by muscle cells and controlled by an electric field.Janet Sinn-Hanlon/Group VetMed

A new cyborg – part machine and part biological muscle – has taken its first steps.

University of Illinois researchers, in a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, say their tiny new creature is the first robot that uses live muscle for power. The researchers, with funding from the National Science Foundation, have created a muscle-powered biological machine that can be controlled with an electric current.

It could lead to a new generation of biological robots, or “biobots.”

Researchers around the world have been hoping to use this type of technology for a range of applications, from building military robots to designing replacement organs.

Military robots have been on the U.S. military’s table for a while. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been pioneering robot research for many years, and Gen. Robert Cone, commander of the Army Training and Doctrine Command, announced in January that he was tasked with considering the reduction of brigade combat teams from 4,000 to 3,000 soldiers – and replacing the human personnel with robots.

But humanoid robots, like humans, are very complicated, and they remain elusive for now. The advances needed to build ones that can go to war are vast: They require human dexterity and movement control, not to mention quantum computing that can achieve human “intelligence.”

Some researchers believe the solution will be to combine the machine with living tissue to create Terminator-style cyborgs. It’s still the stuff of science fiction, but the tiny biobots could be a key step forward.

How does it work?
The new biobot’s design is similar to the muscle, tendon and bone systems in animals. It moves when an electrical current is applied to the muscle, causing it to contract.

Lab-grown muscle cells are grown into a strip, and 3-D printers are used to create hydrogel “backbones” that bend like joints and provide strength like bone. The strip of muscle is grafted onto the backbone, just as tendons attach muscle to bone.

The biobot’s human controller can command the robot by issuing electrical pulses that power its movement. The frequency of the pulses can be adjusted to control speed: The higher the frequency, the more muscle contractions, the faster the biobot walks.

The team has shot video of the biobot flexing its muscles to propel itself across a lab.

Earlier cyborgs
The University of Illinois team has done extensive research on blending biological tissue with machines. Its earlier cyborgs were smaller than a centimeter and combined flexible 3-D printed hydrogels with living cells.

These early biobots were powered by rats’ beating heart cells. They could walk, but researchers had limited control over them because the heart cells continually contracted, making it hard to make the robots accelerate and slow down, as well as turn on and off.

But the new generation uses skeletal muscle cells instead of heart cells, and they pave the way to create smart biobots that can be trained and programmed.

The researchers are investigating ways to further improve control over the biobots’ movements, including possibly incorporating neurons so that the robots can respond to light or chemical gradients. They are also leveraging 3-D printing to evolve engineering and design.

[Nitro Express]

You have to wonder about the designer of those AMC models (Pacer/Gremlin/Matador/etc.)

Was it somebody who did too many drugs, or somebody who didn't do enough. In the case of the Latter (pun intentional), was it George Romney trying to make cars on Earth that looked like what he imagined they drove back home on Kolob?

I can remember when mormon missionaries drove Gremlins. Mormons love cosmic funk. You just have to look at some of their temples. The one off of I-5 in LaJolla looks like it's ready to blast off.

[Anonymous]

All I know is history tells us that futurologists are always completely wrong.

40 years ago we were all meant to be getting jetpacks and robot house workers. They never for a second thought of smart phones or even the internet at that point.

In the same way the best chess computer isn't a person so the same with the AI thing. At present this stuff is all brute force, using multiple options based on a computer.

It's nowhere near consciousness.

I remember a 1950s - possibly 60s? - video of "The House of Tomorrow" & how I kept larfing my ass at all the predictions in it.

Nothing wrong with a bit of light-hearted guessing, that's fun. But the voice-over guy had this serious tone & the script he was reading stated that it WOULD be EXACTLY like so.

Of course, every "fact" on that film failed miserably. Now keep in mind that was in the 50s or 60s, when technology was advancing at a comparatively much slower pace than it is today, so predicting made more sense back then, as it was easier to guess.

I'm no expert in the field, but isn't conscience reached by a mixture of chemical reactions & electrical impulses? To my knowledge, mathematical calculations & formulas based life is an impossibility. It CAN "learn", but it will always be limited to outside inputs, as no matter how much its knowledge grows, will never be sentient.

Oh well, somebody just discovered the old science-fiction novels. I used to love that crap when I was a kid, I think I still do. I'll have to start reading a few again, see how it goes.

All the more proof that people never learn from history, every couple of generations some lunatic repeats stuff that was debunked years ago & there'll always be enough gullible, not very smart people with no thoughts of their own ready to pass that "brand new" theory along.

Cheers!