RyanJ

I find it useful for quick calculations or calculations that I really don't want to do myself. It has saved me a lot of time since I got used to it. Plus being able to "just ask" is helpful.

What do you guys think about Wolfram Alpha? Personally I think it's an interesting idea - ambitious but that's probably why I find it so interesting. It has the potential to do a lot of things IF the goals set can be filled.

Scientists have finally uncovered the genetics that allow spiders to create their ultra-fine and strong silk that could one day replace current surgical adhesives. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427325.200-sticky-future-for-the-spider-suture.html

I'll be going into C# again soon - it's been a long time since I used it and I'm somewhat rusty. I plan on writing a cellular automata exploration program as a tutorial for myself.

I believe this thread is relating to the so called dangers brought up in this thread.

A singularity isn't seen as the end anyway - it's just an explosive technological evolution that goes at an exponential (or greater) level per time scale.

Adrenaline is meant to stop you getting out of danger, not to prevent you getting into danger or discomfort in the first place. That is why we perceive danger and try to avoid it - comparing adrenaline to not eating is like comparing two totally different things. It just doesn't work to compare then because they are from different causes. I doubt it will work because, as I have said above, it's meant to get us out of danger, not prevent us getting into it in the first place.

Why? Euphoria is one of the side effects of it. As to why, I guess it's because when you are in danger you could well be hurt. If you're hurt then that pain could get in the way of you escaping so it's best to replace it with euphoria. By helping you endure potential pain it would give you a better chance of escaping - don't you agree?

You asked why it feels good - simply put it's because the body triggers it regardless of the situation. And as adrenaline isn't aware of the circumstances why would it feel different because we caused it than if we didn't?

Actually... most crimes are commuted because of greed, not for thrill. While is is true that, say, teens may get a thrill from shoplifting I have never read any research that suggests that is the primary motivation for most crimes. Adrenaline doesn't know the difference. Our body makes it when we are scared, in danger and in several situations - it's goal is to help us better deal with dangerous or unexpected situations, regardless of whether the person caused the situation or not.

There are lots of views on the matter. Some people think that we are genetically disposed to be that way - such that "survival of the strongest". I'm sure that could be true on some level but most of society discourages it and thus it is suppressed in most people, most of the time. That brings us to another point, the extreme violence in some people could be an inherent flaw. Studies on murderess for example have found that some of them essentially have no conscience. This is the type of topic that could be debated over for the next hundred years

Long answer: Not much except going agrarian.

Critical errors I will of course accept but I fail to see how that makes it similar to a nuclear weapon which was intended to be destructive. I do agree with your thinking but I think that you need to understand that your examples don't quite go well with your specific reasoning. Nuclear weapons for one were created to destroy and if an AI were designed to do that then most arguments we've presented are worthless. If we talk about emergent qualities then underlying errors and flaws in the programming could be manifested in any number of complex and unpredictably ways but to believe that those would inevitably lead to a destructive AI is a little short sighted. I also agree with you in that if it was a military project it would have far more potential danger than a regular lab project for obvious reasons.

1. You would probably need two magnets with differing poles to go that or maybe you could do with something like a generator where an electromagnetic field is created by passing current through coils of wire. As this generates it's own magnetic field it will cause the magnet inside to rotate. 2. With sufficient control over the magnetic field strength then you could. 3. Essentially only two factors affect magnetism, the strength of the magnetic field and the distance between the magnets.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427316.400-industrial-robot-hones-virtual-autopsies.html A new approach to autopsies that isn't so invasive and destructive is being pioneered in a university in Switzerland. This new robot could help make future autopsies a lot simpler and less destructive.

Calculus is always helpful in most areas of science and it is used in physical chemistry as I recall. If you think you will need said topic in your studies (maybe asking a tutor if it's needed?) then go for it

Exactly my point. Those are completely different. The incidents you relate are not similar to this at all - none of those were created in the lab to suit a purpose that would come under a category such as an AI. True the nuclear weapons and such were developed in labs but they were designed to be destructive - if an AI were designed to be destructiveness then it would be also and render most of the arguments in this thread worthless. We are discussing evolved nature and how it would affect the AI - not that it was created as a sort of virtual nuclear device.

That is still not free energy - not by any definition that I am aware of anyway.

If you mean in a microwave then it goes like this. Water molecules tend to absorb photons in the microwave range and so are "excited" by them. As heat is a measure of somethings "excitement" (more correctly how quickly the molecules are moving) the water gets hotter. The glass gets warmer by conduction of the heat from the warmer liquid.

Things that normally look like they make free energy don't - for one it goes against the laws of thermodynamics and allows for self perpetuating machines. What type of "free energy" are you working on?

Maybe not the exact one I listed there but there are other options for different equation sets there too. One of those should have what you want.

Try putting the information here. That should help you understand it

As I have said before it would be very, very difficult to copy something that we don't understand. It can be reasonably assumed that we would have to have a decent understanding before we would have much success in copying it.

Being the eternal optimist that I am, I don't believe it'll ever come to that - if anything we are far more likely to wipe ourselves out than have some rogue AI do it. With the understanding of how to build an AI it's possible we would learn to expand our own intelligence and make ourselves smarter, if we can do that then that would certainly be worth it.

Ah the good old question of why. There are 2 reasons really, firstly to see if it's possible or not and secondly because the benefits would outweigh the risks.