Comment by blackbrokkoli | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blackbrokkoli | Hacker News Reader

"MOSTLY RIGHT" seems to mean "a pilot project around silicon valley (or in a big Chinese city) exists".

I've visited a dozen countries and I've never encountered an AI system to prevent interpersonal violence. AI gunfire detection system seem to exist solely in a certain country with a tendency to tack startup solutions onto deep-rooted societal issues.

This is a recurring theme throughout the article. The average hospital runs on Windows XP, not a sci-fi network of smart-watches.

Virtual artists are somewhat respected for sure, but AI-generated art is a niche for nerds. I say "art" you think Picasso, not Google Labs.

No, no one passed the actual Turing test yet. The public discussion was doomed from the start, since Turing himself published several variants. This led to an explosion of (mostly dumb IMO) variations that are much easier to solve - which are getting solved.

Honestly, the original predictions are written badly. They are full of bullshit words (many, some, there is) making them not really quantifiable. Also, they contain an implied focus on US tech centers, which allows the existence of a single PR-stunt pilot project as a reason to answer "Totally Right" to anything proposed. Maybe I just don't the point, but this smells like pseudo-intellectual reasoning for "amortality will definitely be achieved before I die, see?"...

The most comical example of this the moving goalposts is Kurzweil's scores of his own predictions in 2010.

> 12. Communication | Haptics let people touch and feel remotely

PREDICTION: Haptic technologies are emerging that allow people to touch and feel objects and other persons at a distance.

ACCURACY: Correct

He basically interpreted his prediction to mean touch screens and some vaporware demo videos or blog posts.

His predictions are often technically a possibility but make virtually no impact on how society functions

https://kurzweilai.net/images/How-My-Predictions-Are-Faring....

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/about/about-nypd/equipment-te...

> In March 2015, the Department began employing ShotSpotter, a technology that pinpoints the sound of gunfire with real-time locations, even when no one calls 911 to report it. This technology triangulates where a shooting occurred and alerts police officers to the scene, letting them know relevant information: including the number of shots fired, if the shooter was moving at the time of the incident (e.g., in a vehicle), and the direction of the shooter's movement. ShotSpotter enables a much faster response to the incident and the ability to assist victims, gather evidence, solve crimes, and apprehend suspects more quickly.

>Honestly, the original predictions are written badly.

Predictions are vague by their very nature and this is a hell of a lot clearer than Nostradamus & co.

>AI gunfire detection system seem to exist solely in a certain country

Don't think you need AI for that. Some cities have had these for a decade plus

> Predictions are vague by their very nature and this is a hell of a lot clearer than Nostradamus & co.

Humanity has literally only one way to gain knowledge about the world: Making a testable prediction and then testing it (The Scientific Method).

Just because other people used their authority to make even worse arguments does not mean these are good.

> Humanity has literally only one way to gain knowledge about the world: Making a testable prediction and then testing it (The Scientific Method).

I think Popperian science occupies too large a place in your epistemology. "Science" has come to mean two distinct things: any procedure for arriving at highly reliable knowledge, and one specific procedure for arriving at highly reliable knowledge. The latter is constantly threatening to crowd out the former.

The scientific method itself, for example, would be valid even if no science had ever been done. It is not at all the product of empirical analysis, but of deductive reasoning.

Also "I've tortured the meaning of this to make Ray look like less of an idiot." I'm pretty sure gunshot detectors, which arguably date from WW-1, don't qualify as "Public and private spaces are routinely monitored by machine intelligence to prevent interpersonal violence.”

This made me laugh, thank you. Do you have source on the WW-1 detectors? Sounds intriguing!

They're referring to artillery sound ranging. (Using sound to triangulate the position of enemy artillery batteries.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_sound_ranging#World_...

A lot of the supposed successes existed in more or less their current form at the time the so-called "prediction" was made.

I’m not sure how you think they work or how they are currently being used if you’re under the impression that statement is an inaccurate description of reality.

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