
Who Will Command the Robot Armies? - stablemap
http://idlewords.com/talks/robot_armies.htm
======
georgeecollins
This is genius in that it starts by seeming to be a portentous talk about the
evil other and turns the tables to show that the enemy may be us: How do we
let ourselves be robots? Do we really like social control? Why do we expect
the technology that got us into these problems to get us out of it.

I don't think we are really in a terrible place. In so many ways the world is
better than it was. But we are kind of blind to the problems we are creating.
Read this.

~~~
zigzigzag
I don't think we're blind to the problems being created. It's more that there
are no obvious solutions beyond stasis, which is no real solution as it just
fixes us with today's set of problems instead of tomorrow's.

I like Maciej's talks, they're always entertaining, but at the end of them I
always feel not quite satisfied. He is good at presenting well known problems
in amusing ways but rarely identifies solutions beyond the hopelessly vague
(like "we should all think about stuff more").

He is also utterly resistant to giving large companies any credit at all.
Google and Facebook have moved the needle on strong cryptography and anti-
surveillance tools more than any other groups, but in these talks they're
always the bad guys because they make money through advertising instead of
credit cards (which are legally linked to your real name and address: far far
worse for privacy than ads).

A big part of this talk boils down to, the US Government can order American
companies to undo any protections they themselves create. But this is hardly
worth commenting on. It is a political problem and the only solution is for
political candidates to appear that manage to appeal to large numbers of
voters whilst simultaneously being strong on civil rights and shutting down
surveillance systems. Neither Clinton nor Trump seem very likely to do that,
but nor did any other candidates. The issue matters to people but it matters a
lot less than other issues.

~~~
idlewords
I feel like this is a fair criticism of my talks.

There are two point I would dispute. First, I do give large tech companies
(and the NSA!) credit for being internally heterogeneous, and doing good
things along with bad.

Second, it would be ridiculous to give Facebook or Google credit for making
anti-surveillance tools. That would be like praising tobacco companies for
inventing a better cigarette filter.

~~~
zigzigzag
My beef is that you sort of place the finger of blame on big companies for the
concentration of data in the cloud, even though that appears to be a natural
evolution and what users want. It's not like Google or Facebook engaged in an
evil master plan to force users to give them lots of data. Users willingly did
this because they didn't want to manage that data themselves, and if
Google/Facebook hadn't offered them that service they'd simply have gone to
another company that did.

Given that this is the way technology has evolved independent of any one firm,
is it really fair to compare them to tobacco companies?

------
grappler
Chad and Brad are in a pretty shitty position right now as far as these things
go. They have product owners breathing down their neck and are increasingly
signed in as the pair chad+brad@company.com in their open-office chain gang,
unable to take even a moment's solitary contemplation about what they're
working on.

They were not hired to do anything other than check off stories on a task
board, their “velocity” tracked by the system described in Piketty's “Capital
in the Twenty-First Century”.

If one of them were to get too invested in the ideas described here, he'd be
chastized by the other, or by a manager, or the rest of his team collectively,
and potentially replaced.

This is at least part of what people mean when they lament that software
engineering isn't treated as a profession in the manner of doctors or lawyers.
Many of us may be very smart and able to weigh issues like these, but these
things are not encouraged or rewarded or respected by most of the employers.

~~~
kelnos
> If one of them were to get too invested in the ideas described here, he'd be
> chastized by the other, or by a manager, or the rest of his team
> collectively, and potentially replaced.

But at least they'd then be in the clear, ethically speaking, and their
employer will be on notice that this is not cool, even if they do eventually
find someone willing to carry out their unethical deeds. If no one stands up
for what's right, the managers will just be reinforced in their belief that
they can do whatever they want.

Most developers are in a much better position to stand up for this sort of
thing than people in industries with less worker demand. If my company asked
me to do something unethical, I could quit on the spot and have a new, better
job in under a week. No, not all developers are on such good footing, but
there are many, many categories of job where employment security is so low
that quitting over an ethical quandary would be unthinkable.

------
lossolo
What I am worried about is that in future AI swarm military robots will enable
something that wasn't seen yet in history. Now to make dictatorship state you
need support of military/rebels/people behind it, you can't make it on your
own. Without humans in equation who will stop some oligarch with enough money
to take over some nation in for example Africa or Middle East? You wouldn't
need hundreds of thousands/millions people supporting you anymore.

~~~
elefanten
Yes, this is why humans still need to work out some of the age old problems,
like governance and ethics.

Otherwise it's going to be kind of a dice roll--what are the values of the
first team to achieve the governance-eclipsing technology.

~~~
77pt77
> Otherwise it's going to be kind of a dice roll--what are the values of the
> first team to achieve the governance-eclipsing technology.

So like all history until now.

The winners dictate morality. Nothing will change.

------
cm2187
I like the "Chad and Brad". That's a good proxy for the average developper in
a corporation who barely understand more what he is doing than a hobbyist.

Inevitably, when the technology will have gone mainstream, programming a robot
to do something will be done by a junior technician at some random anonymous
supplier in a developping country who cannot even read the documentation
because he doesn't speak a word of english. That's how you will end up with
your cheap butler/cook robot purchased on amazon, chasing the house dog with a
butcher knive shortly before dinner.

If Internet of Things teaches us anything...

~~~
tomaskafka
Yes. And "Chad and Brad" tend to programming, because they subconsciously feel
that by doing the work they are wielding power (even though they are not
consciously aware of implications), while they'd be losers otherwise.

Giving a feeling of power to the losers is a #1 step to creating an obedient
army. Ask any dicator, populist, or army leader.

------
coldcode
This is a pretty brilliant talk, frightening and funny at the same time; in
the end I take refuge in the fact that the robotic future will likely not
involve humans as no sentient technology can be as stupid as we are and will
likely eliminate us at the first opportunity.

~~~
RangerScience
Wait... You're saying that you're hopeful that something we make can fix the
mess from us fucking up making things because it'll be less fucked up?

I'd find some agreement with you that logically we're the dumbest possible
intelligence, because the trend is up and we're at the beginning, except we're
not at the beginning, people like the Sumerians were. Except they're not the
beginning, either...

~~~
visarga
> we're the dumbest possible intelligence

Collectively, yes. But individually, not so much, considering how hard it is
to replicate human abilities in AI.

~~~
tropicalmug
"One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity
there ain't nothing can beat teamwork."

Seldom Smith, from The Monkey-Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey.

~~~
s_kilk
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals"

\-- Agent Kay (Men in Black)

------
JumpCrisscross
Robots will change the relationship between populations and power. You needed
populations to drive your economy and man your army. At the very least, no man
ruled alone--your court could always overthrow you.

A robot army could be built to obey only one. And a factory of robots can make
wealth without people.

Even assuming we solve the weak control problem, we are about to enable
unprecedented capacity for absolute power.

~~~
te_chris
But in democratic states you still have one dispossessed person, one vote. So
the robot controllers have all the power, until each election when all the
angry people vote for unhinged assholes like trump (or not all, as the case
may be).

~~~
type0
> So the robot controllers have all the power, until each election when all
> the angry people vote for unhinged assholes like trump

So the solution is to give robots the rights to vote?!

------
bramen
> Huggies tried to make a similar sensor to detect when the diaper is full of
> shit, but it proved impossible to distinguish from normal activity on
> Twitter.

See this is why we need groundbreaking advancements in deep learning and we
need them now.

------
Dowwie
This blog post is a text version of the talk that Maciej Cegłowski gave last
week:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Plwt3QSlBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Plwt3QSlBs)

------
tonyztan
Video of talk: [https://youtu.be/XY-Ktqhlloc](https://youtu.be/XY-Ktqhlloc)

------
tangue
HN being HN I have to say that's this is how I like to read presentations on
the Internet. Not on slideshare, not with a js library that add worthless
transitions between slides but in a simple, readable text on one page.

~~~
idlewords
HTML table tags, baby! Thank you!

~~~
lisper
[http://www.flownet.com/ron/css-rant.html](http://www.flownet.com/ron/css-
rant.html)

~~~
johnfjacobi
I've never read this before, but it offers a unique perspective that might
have convinced me to be less damning of tables in place of CSS.

~~~
tomjakubowski
Well hey, you could always get the best of both worlds and use "display:
table" and friends. :)

~~~
Drdrdrq
I never understood the point of this... If you want something to look like a
table, why not just _use_ a table? With html only content and design really
matter...

~~~
tomjakubowski
User agents aren't necessarily graphical web browsers. Marking up a document
fragment as a <table> when it isn't tabular data makes it harder for screen
readers, terminal web browsers, and crawlers to do their job well.

------
chairleader
Nicely done talk. Great presentation, fun enough to keep listeners engaged
through a lot of horrifying details. I also agree that we, the people, have a
(final?) say in how this all goes down.

Let's run with the conclusion a bit - What would society be like for there to
be a critical mass of critical thinkers, aware of new developments, in a
position to act and motivated to speak up?

The cynic in me sees that list and despairs. How can we expect the average
parent of 2 to keep C-SPAN on throughout the day, calling their senators on
lunch breaks, and boycotting products that would give them an extra hour back
every week that could be spent playing with their children.

That's how it would look, right? Instead of skimming political/technical news
that entertains us while validating our viewpoint, we'd be parsing legalese
like it's a pull request. Instead of binge watching Netflix, we might be
driving to a store to buy something that could have arrived yesterday via
Amazon Prime.

It's all quite doable. It's just not immediately comfortable. It's also not a
priority in our lives, since it's so easy to prioritize anything else with
immediate feedback or gratification. However, humans are very good at
internalizing and normalizing. When motivated, we can make virtually any
behavior livable, or even comfortable.

So that's the trick. How do we normalize critical thinking, due diligence, and
active engagement?

------
choonway
It's the cat. In other words, it would seem like the robots are pandering to
our desires, but in reality they're using us as their toy launcher.

We would be amused into slavery.

------
everyone
My take on the reason for the US's endless warfare is that it is simply a way
to transfer billions of dollars of tax money every year to arms manufacturers
and their political allies.

~~~
sehr
That isn't your take so much as _the_ take people use to inconsiderately
explain it all away on the daily.

~~~
adt2bt
What's your take? You're not offering an alternative here.

~~~
Retra
Hopefully it's something that can actually be used to make decisions and not
some pandering fluff designed to appease the norms of their own thoughtless
and cynical in-group.

On the other hand, maybe it's actually ok to not pretend to have all the
answers.

------
jameslk
Also related:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_suarez_the_kill_decision_sh...](https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_suarez_the_kill_decision_shouldn_t_belong_to_a_robot)

This talk takes an interesting historical dive into how democracy arrived and
how it may be destroyed by the machines and weapons we're building. Fun stuff!

------
swayvil
Rich people within fortresses will command the robot army.

Root passwords will be handed down eldest son to eldest son.

~~~
coldcode
Given the quality of security in most companies we'll all know it before they
do.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Related, it's funny how the only people who can make IoT actually interoperate
is the evil people turning them into DDoS botnets...

------
panic
_Consider Pokémon Go, which when it was initially released required full
access to your Gmail account. To play America 's most popular game, you
practically had to give it power of attorney._

To nitpick this totally inconsequential point: you could use a Pokémon Trainer
Club account instead of a Google account if you wanted to. Most people still
chose the convenience of logging into their existing account instead of
creating a new one, though.

~~~
StavrosK
Also, apps that request Google Account access can't actually read your mail,
can they... It's just a verification that you own that email address.

~~~
tonyarkles
When you request account access, there's a scope parameter to specify which
aspects you want. They had inadvertently set that to "all" instead of "user
info". Those oauth tokens would have been keys to the kingdom.

~~~
StavrosK
Oh, oops. Good thing I never use Google login, then (I don't want services to
know my email address).

------
ap22213
Why do we even have armed forces and the police? There are a lot of different
reasons, but the big one is to defend property. And, who owns most of the
property? And, who will own most of the robots? Fewer and fewer people as time
goes on.

The other day, I heard a guy joke (in very bad taste), that when there are no
more jobs left, there will always be prostitution and slavery. It's a sick
thought, but how far off is it?

------
siavosh
Is it just me, or is the link to his home site in the top left a spam/phishing
link? (has 2x .com's)

Other than that, really enjoyed it.

~~~
arama471
I think that's an advertisement, likely masquerading as a normal link. I
initially thought so because I didn't see anything with an odd link in the top
left with adblock on, but now even having turned it off I see no such link.

Here is a picture of what I'm seeing:
[http://puu.sh/sodrS/17a88ea8b9.jpg](http://puu.sh/sodrS/17a88ea8b9.jpg)

~~~
idlewords
No, I just fixed the .com.com typo.

------
CM30
I suspect the answer (perhaps unfortunately) will be 'anyone with the money to
afford the technology'. I can see an actual industry appearing around robotics
and AI controlled weapons systems, and a fair few companies willing to sell to
special interests outside of the police or military.

So I suspect we'll get a situation where everyone from the police and military
to political groups, companies (mostly larger ones), richer/more tech obsessed
civilians and criminals have access to military grade robots. Like a more
expensive version of firearms in the US.

------
mtgx
Relevant talk from Daniel Suarez that I recommend everyone watches:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMYYx_im5QI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMYYx_im5QI)

~~~
mdpopescu
That video could be called "the democratization of military power".

------
Brakenshire
[https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/](https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/)

------
mrkgnao
I wonder if the images are all that's on his slides when he gives a talk. It
would certainly require a great deal of facility with public speaking to be
able to pull that off. Kudos to 'idlewords if that is indeed the case.

------
kstenerud
Far more important is who will trigger the first robot rampage.

Contrary to what tech philosophers have been spouting from their ivory towers,
there will be no positronic brain, nor will the 3 laws help one iota once a
robot has been hacked.

All it takes is one deranged soul with a little know-how and a desire to see
the world burn. Tweak the AI a bit, and now you have a robot that looks for
signs of breathing, and then beats, shoots, stabs, and smothers until it stops
breathing. Recharge, repeat.

~~~
mdpopescu
To me, the incredibly amazing thing is that there are very few such people in
the world. My view of humanity is pretty abysmal and yet, out of seven billion
people, nobody has created a really nasty disease, or blown up millions of
people, or something.

[By nobody I mean, of course, "nobody except for governments". Which maybe
explains where these people migrate to.]

------
macawfish
Did you see all those ridiculous IoT devices? So those things are allowed to
connect P2P but people aren't?

Why are people wasting time on this stuff? The "free market"?

~~~
panic
I think there's a widespread lack of imagination about what the future ought
to be like. It's been 50 years, we need another Star Trek!

~~~
TeMPOraL
Free market is definitely not helping here at the moment. To get Star Trek
(sans transporters and warp drive), what we need to do is to make all our
existing tech interoperable. Which is _exactly_ the thing businesses are
icentivized _against_. Hence the utter bullshit mobile ecosystem is, not to
even start on IoT...

------
sebringj
This reminds me of the paper clip analogy of AI maximizing making paper clips
at the expense of human life by using more matter except this is real. The
algorithm didn't take into account fact checking or ethics and just kept
making paper clips. I love React but Facebook, this is shameful and has to be
corrected.

------
devoply
There will be a time in the near future where a CEO of a large company similar
to Google will have the ability to control a billion robots, Google has over a
billion android phones that it could subvert if it wanted to. Such level of
power would effectively allow such a company or CEO to take over the world.

~~~
Brakenshire
The final victory of capital over labour!

~~~
devoply
At the end though, such a CEO might think of him or herself as being totally
altruistic and saving the world from its idiotic leadership. US is already
headed towards tyranny. The political climate could be just rife in 30-40
years for that sort of thing to be justified by a well-meaning person.

~~~
golergka
Idealist make the worst mass murderers and dictators.

~~~
abandonliberty
Also the best.

------
cryptozeus
Great read...how about media ? They are playing larger and larger role in how
our elections are run. One big media comapny could have indirect affect on how
people will feel and behave including governments, armies and nations.

~~~
username223
> They are playing larger and larger role in how our elections are run.

What?! How many news outlets endorsed Trump? How many fired people because
they're making less money? Unless Macedonian Facebook spammers count as
"media" these days, "the media" has less money, less reach, and less influence
every year.

------
icomefromreddit
A Russian hacker (or a state-sponsored team of hackers).

~~~
Jerry2
You've been fed too much propaganda. Do a detox.

~~~
icomefromreddit
Wikileaks is propaganda, NPR is not:

[http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/08/19/490515026/i...](http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/08/19/490515026/in-
leak-of-democratic-emails-questions-about-russias-role)

Edit. Another source (of many):

[http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/13/politics/russia-us-
electio...](http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/13/politics/russia-us-election/)

~~~
nyolfen
wikileaks publishes leaked documents. they're propaganda in the sense that
they present information under an ethos meant to serve an ideological purpose,
but that's a meaning so broad that cnn and npr also easily fall under it. if
you take issue with the veracity of what they've published, make a case, but
otherwise, calling something 'propaganda' and thinking that alone is somehow a
knock to its value or truth is meaningless.

i'm totally willing to believe that russia obtained the emails and gave them
to wikileaks -- it's far from proven, at least on the public side of
discourse, but it makes sense and doesn't seem impossible or bullshitty to me.
but that doesn't mean that the emails aren't real. it's foolish to cover your
ears and ignore things just because someone you don't like said it.

wikileaks has also published much, much more than the dnc/podesta emails, from
a very wide variety of sources.

~~~
Jerry2
>i'm totally willing to believe that russia obtained the emails and gave them
to wikileaks -- it's far from proven, at least on the public side of
discourse, but it makes sense and doesn't seem impossible or bullshitty to me

Yet we've seen zero evidence for it. Blaming Russia is convenient for DNC
since it shifts the dialogue from the emails to "evil empire" that's
supposedly behind it. First, they attempted to claim that emails have been
tampered with and then when DKIM signatures proved that hypothesis wrong, they
shifted their tactics.

Funniest part of that whole election was the claim by Dems that Trump has some
kind of a secret server that communicates with Russians. Laughable. It's all
just a misdirection.

~~~
nyolfen
"zero evidence" is completely wrong. here's the crowdstrike writeup about the
dnc hacks and their reasoning for linking it to russian state hackers:

[https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-
democ...](https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-
national-committee/)

there were also, iirc, at least six other private security companies that came
to the same conclusion, who weren't hired by the dnc. additionally, every US
intelligence agency backed up the claim.

again, not a proven statement, but there's a substantial amount of evidence
we're aware of.

>First, they attempted to claim that emails have been tampered with and then
when DKIM signatures proved that hypothesis wrong, they shifted their tactics.

do you have a source for the first part? afaik it was just twitter randos
floating the idea

i'm not a partisan in this fight. i didn't vote, i despised both candidates,
but i also think both sides can be a little blind in their eagerness to paint
the other as disingenuous. i'm very interested in this subject and it's one
i've followed closely, and i'm reasonably sure russian state actors were
behind the dnc and podesta hacks, but i also think it's worth keeping an open
mind as a general principle and not to be blinded by ideological alliances.

------
squozzer
>Huggies tried to make a similar sensor to detect when the diaper is full of
shit, but it proved impossible to distinguish from normal activity on Twitter.

+1

------
helloasdfasdf
Who will collect data on our citizens using CCTVs, and the ability to
compromise computers?

I don't think our society's adversaries are passing laws by showing up to
court themselves.

I don't know where the line is between armed robots and CCTVs meant to control
us, it feels very blurred to me.

------
Dove
I think the search for a suitable commander for the robot armies is a silly
one. Asking "Who will command robots?" is like asking "who will run software?"
Everyone will. What will they do? Whatever their creators and owners want them
to.

There are already a lot of robots in the world, just as there is already a lot
of software. Indeed, Hollywood likes to depict robots by starting with a human
mind and warping it, but a better intuition is formed by remembering that
robots are software with physical outputs. They aren't going to spontaneously
develop new abilities unless they have been created to.

Some people are inclined to develop software carelessly. "Move fast and break
things" is a sensible motto for someone at the center of building social media
from nothing. That's only one engineering culture, though. Visit labs in heavy
industrial R&D, in academia, in defense, listen to open source developers'
chatter, and you will see plenty of people write books on whether a single
line of code should say this or that. Cheer up. It isn't all maximum velocity
startups. :)

Software - and robots as instantiations of software - is not good and it's not
evil and it's not careless and it's not careful. It can be any of these,
because it is a reflection of its creators. Like all machines, it amplifies
their will.

I very much expect robotics to follow the same path that automation before it
always has.

In the beginning, industrial machinery was dangerous to the workers who used
it, being first generation tech designed only to get a new job done. As the
decades wore on, the machines became safer, quieter, smarter, more
predictable. Best practices and required safety protections developed, and now
industrial machinery maiming someone is a scandal.

Machines of warfare were once indiscriminate. The buzz bombs and incendiary
balloons of the second world war would be considered terrorist weapons today.
The weapons that kill indiscriminately after a conflict ends - the land mines,
the chemical weapons - banned now. Sure, they're still used by those who don't
care about their moral reputation, but it's the sort of thing that makes the
international community talk about putting together a coalition to overthrow
your government. Nobody does it lightly.

Would the militaries of the world make the same mistake with robots - not
retaining control of every kill? Putting an experimental-ai long-lived robot
behind a weapon where it might kill for all the wrong reasons after a conflict
is over? I seriously doubt it. Too many people would see such a thing as a
land mine, and rightly so. A military that didn't care about their moral
reputation might do that, but that doesn't make responsibly developed military
robots bad. Machines reflect their creators. I very much expect that whatever
mistakes the militaries of the world make with robots will be new ones, not
easily foreseen. And that as we get better at the technology, we'll correct
those too, and ultimately - just like our industrial engineering, just like
our software in general - they will be as safe, and as dangerous, and as
predictable, and as smart, and as useful, and as directly controlled by
humans, as we as a society want them to be.

Mature technology doesn't look like Facebook. Never has, never will. It looks
like Apache - something well-considered, controllable and safe, something
which does a job so reasonably and so well that it's boring to everyone but
the geeks who work on it. :)

Robot armies will be controlled by everyone, and they will be as unremarkable
as the robots I control now: my quad, my 3d printer, my washer and dryer, my
car. Dangerous if misused or badly designed, but these things are are
avoidable, and beyond that - safe, convenient, nice to have.

~~~
paulmd
We already have that first generation of robotic weaponry. Systems like the
AGM-88 HARM and Aegis/Phalanx CIWS will autonomously select their target and
attack. Everyone is largely content with them, despite the occasional mis-
identifications and accidents (they tend not to properly consider what is
behind their target, which leads to some problems when they miss).

The South Koreans and Israelis are both working on automatic sentry turrets
and the Israelis have actually deployed such systems. This is probably the
closest analogy to your "land mine" but we're still OK with it.

------
Razengan
Hopefully an open-sourced A.I. government.

------
alphanumeric0
The Trade Federation, duh.

------
zapzamx
> Who Will Command the Robot Armies?

Ender Wiggin

------
Gnarl
Zorglub will be in charge

------
Sevii
bugs

better keep your programmers happy

------
olliej
webcams will.

------
Pica_soO
The guy who flashes them at the end of the production-line in the cheapest
country available.

~~~
Teever
Well it's obvious that we need to eliminate that possibility. We'll just have
the robots build themselves.

Problem eliminated and no other unintended consequences as far as I can see.

~~~
icomefromreddit
A self-sustaining civilization of robots. Humans are gone, but generations and
generations of robots evolve and, eventually, incorporating organic compounds,
they become cyborgs.

~~~
akovaski
However, the robots were doomed by their limited intelligence and their fervor
to produce additional robots. The robots eventually depleted all available
resources, thus making the planet uninhabitable for themselves.

~~~
drawkbox
Until they learned to explore the cosmos and do this on planet after planet
leading to the Grey Goo[1]. Or the flipside, in that they create a Big Bang to
reverse it like the multivac did in Asimov's The Last Question when they
finally have sufficient information to process it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo)

~~~
Pica_soO
If you would assume technology to another biology- then a error is a mutation,
thus robots would divide into predators and hunted animals, resulting in a new
wildlife.

~~~
icomefromreddit
Or a class conflict, once they become conscious, class-conscious.

------
JBiserkov
General Grievous. But actually Count Dooku. But actually senator Palpatine.
Who has recently been elected Supreme Chancellor. But actually Darth Sidious.

~~~
1wheel
Actually Jar Jar

~~~
Namrog84
Jar jar! I like the fan theory about jar jar being a Jedi. It's great

~~~
blatant
A _sith_ actually.

------
Frenchgeek
Bob.

Turn out Youtube didn't manage to stop him.

~~~
eth0up
Not trying to be pedantic, but might you have been referring to a:

J. R. "Bob" Dobbs?

If so, pardon my intrusion, and abundant slack to you.

~~~
Frenchgeek
[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/this-is-
bob](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/this-is-bob)

------
nom
Probably a teen from a basement in rural Russia.

------
a3n
> Who Will Command the Robot Armies?

PID 1.

~~~
megous
systemd?

------
lucio
"Here is Huggies TweetPee, which is exactly what you're most afraid it will
be. This moisture sensor clips to your baby's diaper and sends you a tweet
when it is wet.

Huggies tried to make a similar sensor to detect when the diaper is full of
shit, but it proved impossible to distinguish from normal activity on Twitter.
"

------
koga-ninja
An extensively researched talk. I hope people like Boredom and ennui. What are
you going to do when Most labour is done by robots, and you sit at home
Collecting a monthly cheque from the government.

I know this is provocative, but many occupations Are simply busywork.

I do think robot armies can be hacked, so try not to Centralize everything.

~~~
scott_karana
Hiking, reading, writing, walking, talking, singing, loving, painting,
cooking, eating, competing... Everything that people say "I wish I did
more..." on their deathbeds.

------
bhdz
"I imagine it asking you who you are in a heavy Slavic accent before firing
its many weapons into your fleeing body."

I find this ... part of a paragraph, highly unnecessary continuation of the
previous sentence! And I {object (to this! it = Slavic}; my accent is (fine;
(fuck you too = _Writer_; ... i ment...; ...; Nevermind! [:Reader])!

Yeah... fuck your wars, I aint hating Americans for that, and I ain't "pulling
out a gun" { missing word -> due to rising _(<<anger-ining>>)_ feelings or
something...; Fuck you = _Reader_??!$!$> $T@$ @$) ) )!# _ }; fuck fuck fuck
you!...

edit: in-before: whatever: I don't care about points, and this is not a
language, this is just a fuck off to the OW {Original Writer}; of the article;
_Fuck_ _off_; ... yeah.. fuck you... I'm fine... k... bye

~~~
idlewords
Is this perl?

~~~
bhdz
No, this is jhet :)

jhet is; A language utility; that I develop; .

jhet is A language utility { that I develop }; .

~ jhet is A language utility that I { develop | create | screw around...} .

~ jhet is PROBABLY a language {Some Kind of English, but not the same... read
->
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket#Curly_brackets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket#Curly_brackets)
-> It's basically BRACKETs { of the ENGLIH lagn } that is/would be; !#@ %R
whatever... I am showing it off right now may be for the first time..

~ jhet is a language utility; (that would help you); (if it existed {but it's
not}); with Languages; Kinda like DrRacket... So JHET would be (may be) some
kind of SLANG for RACKET { in DrRacket };... yeah, complimentary to the Racket
whatever { "it" may be}... Just __imagine__ YOU'RE INA STRING {of data}

~ The Language:: Language:: The language has a working name as Charm {as in
SPELL-cast-ing | _goofy_ I know, but its a good name! yeh... }

~ Todo: jhet { "jhet" is just a word-hack right now... a w-rack if you will :P

Term: To wrack IS To hack words. Word-Hack

~~~
tptacek
I think you broke him, Maciej.

~~~
bhdz
(Maciej: +1; broke; "him" _ )... Hey... are u talkin' bout me?? ([:ха-ха!)]

edit: don't mind me, I am a grue __hick!ufblargh __eatin ' ur bear, drinkn ur
weed, ae overloaded ae ae wha-a-a! ae ae ea ea

edit.2: fucke' script bot __hci __downvoii mi poem postage * blarkhuiar __ada
da ad add ad add ad

edit.3: fucke' h'p'str's''.. ur ppntd... blarrah ghr355 3

------
drvdevd
From the article:

> We, on the other hand, didn't plan a thing. > We just built ourselves a
> powerful apparatus for social control with no sense of purpose or consensus
> about shared values.

I strictly disagree. We must never forget that just because (perhaps) you and
I reading this didn't contribute to this system with a sense of "purpose and
... shared values" that someone else didn't. And we must not forget that those
values may not be in accordance with our own.

What appears to be a disorganized mess on the surface may have a much larger
design, it's just probably not _your_ design.

------
lowglow
Hey, we're working on building those neato robot armies over at Asteria
([https://getasteria.com](https://getasteria.com)). We'd really like to share
the (less grim?) vision of how cool that future might be. If you're interested
in something that's exciting, and could potentially be very life changing,
come check out what we're working on.

Full disclosure: I'm one of the founders.

[edit] We're also looking to hire and work with interested. Just hit up
/careers and check out what we're looking for. Also, I appreciate just working
with hackers, so if you don't see something there that suits you, hit me up
and let's chat. :)

~~~
exergy
Are you fucking serious? Did you even bother with the article at all?

What you're making is no different than what Maciej talks about, and just as
naff.

More connectedness is not more good. I explicitly would NOT want a no-name
company having ALL of my data and seeing everything that I'm seeing. It's bad
enough that Google knows everything about me.

Maciej has another excellent talk about how the half-life of data is basically
infinite. So while YOU may think you're a benevolent public benefactor, when
(not if) you resell my data to the next guy, he may not be. Also, what
possible benefit does it bring to my life? Book appointments? Tell me the
weather? Why can't I do these things the dumb way?

Progress for the sake of progress is the ideology of s cancer cell.

~~~
lowglow
If you're in San Francisco I'd love to meet up and perhaps allay some of your
fears. :)

I'll respond in-line to your comments:

> Are you fucking serious?

Yes

> Did you even bother with the article at all?

Yes

> What you're making is no different than what Maciej talks about, and just as
> naff.

Why should it be different?

> More connectedness is not more good.

Why?

> I explicitly would NOT want a no-name company having ALL of my data and
> seeing everything that I'm seeing.

Every company was a no-name company before they had a name.

> It's bad enough that Google knows everything about me.

But you continue to invest in that dataset? Help build a company of trust. :)

> Maciej has another excellent talk about how the half-life of data is
> basically infinite.

I'm well aware that data on the internet is indelible. I myself have some
cringe worthy usenet posts from when I was a kid. :)

> So while YOU may think you're a benevolent public benefactor, when (not if)
> you resell my data to the next guy, he may not be.

I think the old model of reselling data is gone, building insights through
models is really the future, and that better helps serve everyone. You're
arguing against the local max we've stumbled into. That's not what we're
working towards. In addition I'm slowly working on creating a way to
participate in personal and generic model building and transactions without
publicly identifying the agents involved.

> Also, what possible benefit does it bring to my life?

Who knows just yet. It's pretty easy to imagine that building a foundation of
predictive models around your life might help better serve to help you
acknowledge things previously your biases perhaps prohibited you from
observing. Knowledge of self is the path to mastery of the self. :)

> Book appointments? Tell me the weather? Why can't I do these things the dumb
> way?

In the most naive cases, sure. You could still do these things the "dumb" way,
but what is the "dumb" way to you has most definitely at one point been the
"new" and "scary" way to the generation before you.

> Progress for the sake of progress is the ideology of s cancer cell.

I would implore you to read : [http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-
explore-space.html](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-
space.html)

My favorite quote being: "significant progress in the solutions of technical
problems is frequently made not by a direct approach, but by first setting a
goal of high challenge which offers a strong motivation for innovative work,
which fires the imagination and spurs men to expend their best efforts, and
which acts as a catalyst by including chains of other reactions."

~~~
mdpopescu
Thank you for this reply. I don't know if I agree with you but I love your
patience.

