olofscience

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content

    2,536

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    11

  • Feedback

    N/A

Everything posted by olofscience

  1. olofscience
    Actually, the Electoral College is basically a first-past-the-post system (FPTP) and mathematically it's actually QUITE difficult to design elections that are fair - if you use Kenneth Arrow's 4 conditions it's actually mathematically impossible. Anyway, FPTP does have the problem that a candidate can get less than 50% of the vote and still win (i.e Trump). But if you want more "fair" elections you will also have to accept that the most populous states will dominate, unless you want to accept that not everyone's votes are equal.
  2. olofscience
    Okay, back in March you were very supportive of Trump's "measures" to stop Covid-19: You fell for Trump's BS at least - they weren't screened, they weren't quarantined, and here we are, 211,000 deaths later. Source: the covid-19 thread (edit 2: it didn't take very long to find, fulfilling the criteria of "easily")
  3. olofscience
    The original quote I believe was from brenthutch, and Skydekker just said it was f'd up. Oh yeah sure, and you're the independent thinker who doesn't fall for crap? hahahahahahahahaha For an independent thinker you stick to the party line as if your brain were on rails.
  4. olofscience
    Places with weak coverage are also places which aren't usually busy - so these are the places least likely to need "remote driving" assistance - the onboard AI should be able to handle it fine. example - long, empty stretches of highway: perfect conditions for full AI driving See my comment above for Starlink - sub-100ms latencies with global coverage
  5. olofscience
    Makes you feel good about yourself, doesn't it? But if that were true, then the very generous welfare state in Denmark or Sweden, for example, would encourage hundreds of thousands of people to be unproductive causing their economy to collapse. But right now they're both very wealthy societies. Would you consider the possibility that the government check is NOT one of the reasons why those people are unproductive?
  6. olofscience
    Well during the debate Trump told them to "stand down and stand by", and they responded with "Standing by sir!" Pretty obvious who owns them.
  7. olofscience
    I guess we'll see soon enough...
  8. olofscience
    I've actually managed to drive a small radio-controlled car before remotely, and it was drivable up to about 700 milliseconds latency. Below 200 milliseconds the latency was not noticeable at all, it felt like I was there. However, Microsoft recently launched a streaming game service - it's practically a video stream, you have a controller and it sends back the control inputs to the cloud server where the game actually runs. For fast-moving games you'd think latency would be a killer. However, they manage it - ironically, they demoed it with a racing simulator: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/13/microsoft-shows-off-project-xcloud-with-forza-running-on-an-android-phone/ They did say "you need a good internet connection", so if the remote drivers are in the same country it shouldn't be much of an issue.
  9. olofscience
    The main issue for controlling things like this will be latency - for drones in Afghanistan, takeoffs and landings are tricky with more than a few hundred milliseconds delay, so takeoffs and landings are done from the local airbase, then control is passed on to operators in the USA. However, Elon Musk is also building a satellite internet constellation that in theory *could* connect an operator in Afghanistan to the US with less than 100 milliseconds latency. Coincidence?
  10. olofscience
    Then guess who will be blamed for taking jobs? "Immigrants." "It's because all manufacturing has gone to China". AI will cause a wave of job losses like never before. That will equal a lot of angry people - if you think Trump is bad, the problem is just beginning. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
  11. olofscience
    It's just a possibility - the specifics will be up to the companies. However, "call center" operations have been done for years already with US Predator drones. The remote "pilots" were based in Nevada, and the drones were in Afghanistan. They were overworked, underpaid, and suffered the PTSD of middle eastern warfare even though they never left the United States. Do you think companies will treat truck drivers better than the Air Force did to their drone pilots? I really hope so, but past history suggests otherwise.
  12. olofscience
    Already happened. Four times. Yes, lawsuits started flying, yet there's still no ban. Companies have been cleared, and undisclosed settlements changed hands. Yes but the companies will need a scapegoat in case of an accident. Unfortunately it will be the "monitoring driver" - this is happening, as we speak, to the operator of the Uber self-driving car that killed Elaine Herzberg: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54175359 At least for corporate owners, level 4 will give them the ability to remove the driver physically and have a "call center" type of operation where remote drivers connect to vehicles needing assistance and manually drive them through tough spots, after which the local AI then takes over, and the "call center" operator connects to another vehicle, etc. So instead of having 1000 drivers for 1000 trucks, you only have 100 remote operators for 1000 trucks doing mostly autonomous driving, saving the owner from the salaries of 900 drivers.
  13. olofscience
    There is no evidence whatsoever that this prediction is realistic in any way, it's pure conjecture. Then you use this unproven conjecture to conclude that "real AI" doesn't exist? I don't know, sounds like you're building a conclusion on shaky foundations. People who say AI is just "pattern matching" are right...if this was the 1980s. In 2012, this field was revolutionized.
  14. olofscience
    You wish
  15. olofscience
    shhhh, don't tell Coreece - he has a weird obsession about them.
  16. olofscience
    No, the commercial benefits are too high for businesses to ignore. While Uber's self-driving car efforts are questionable, they managed to kill one pedestrian and yet less than 2 years later they're back on the roads continuing development. Liability won't slow them down that much. There is a LOT of money on this.
  17. olofscience
    Both incorrect. While I would welcome a self-driving car for my own convenience in long trips, the bigger drive is for big employers (large truck shipping fleets, taxi fleets, delivery vehicles) massively reduce their payroll expenses. With millions of people employed around the world just for driving, the potential savings would be immense. And no, these benefits will *not* trickle down. Many of them will also be electric, and not require as much maintenance as traditional ICE vehicles, so those newly-unemployed drivers won't find new jobs maintaining these new robots. Even many people in the traditional maintenance industry (mechanics, garages, etc.) will see reduced revenue and workload. Meanwhile the company that owns the vehicle will benefit from both reduced payroll and reduced maintenance costs. Win-win from a business point of view.
  18. olofscience
    Well this one I am very much looking forward to seeing! Make sure you post it here first
  19. olofscience
    What does this even mean? Another evidence-free "americans are speshul" statement, only in the negative sense?
  20. olofscience
    Have you been to Germany or Denmark? Everything is expensive. It's not because of renewables.
  21. olofscience
    Your statement had 2 parts: that renewable energy companies aren't profitable and survive only through subsidies that renewable energy companies don't get private capital Both would be so easy to disprove, that now you're retreating into "I didn't say any particular company" excuse. But we can even apply this analysis to the sector as a whole. Numbers can settle the debate. But don't you realise that by declaring the entire renewable energy sector financially unviable, you're pretty much doing the same thing?
  22. olofscience
    So...is this your final answer? That they are not truly profitable? What if I post a set of GAAP or IFRS accounts of renewable energy companies, which contains the details of the subsidies, subtract those, then surely they won't be profitable? Otherwise, you'll have to eat your hat.
  23. olofscience
    Nice try avoiding the topic.
  24. olofscience
    Again, even IF I was wrong, you then pretty much followed off the cliff like a lemming. But if I thought electric cars were renewable energy, why would I be the one to call out your confusion on it? Getting back on topic, do you think renewable energy companies make a loss and are completely dependent on subsidies?
  25. olofscience
    And really, even if I made the mistake conflating it (and I didn't, you just misunderstood what I said), why did you then follow into mixing it up? Anyway, lots of renewable electricity companies are public companies and their accounts are available for all to see. How much are you willing to bet that they're not profitable and only being propped up by taxpayer subsidies?