Azatrot

Well... seems fairly accurate. I'm fairly center when it comes to left vs right, but I'm generally against government control (with exceptions of course). I usually describe myself as a "soft libertarian" or classical liberal.

I'm an agnostic atheist because, as has been said in this thread, it's the null hypothesis. That also means that I am open to changing my view if evidence is presented for the existence of a god, but so far I haven't seen any valid evidence that doesn't violate Occam's Razor.

We already have working autonomous AI surgeons (presumably you need to start them and tell them what to do first, but still autonomous and flexible). There was recently an article about an AI surgeon capable of operating soft tissue (much more difficult than with bone). This was done on pig carcasses first, but they also did some surgery on live pigs. I think it currently took about 40 minutes to perform an operation that would take about 8 minutes for an experienced human surgeon, so there is still some ways to go, however. As for AI in general: We have just in the last few years made huge leaps. Neural networks have already made AI much more human-like in it's way of thinking (image recognition, for example. That's something VERY impressive, even if it's currently imperfect). Neural networks is not a new technology, but it's just recently that we have started to develop them more seriously, and we are already seeing extraordinary results. SpaceX have spoken about it, and are already preparing for it. In just a few years (I think it was 2018) they intend to launch an unmanned Dragon capsule (named "Red Dragon") to Mars and land it. It's a tight schedule, so I'm a bit sceptical. But still it shows that they have their aim set on Mars, and that they have come a surprisingly long way. And a suborbital trip with Virgin Galactic will just cost around $250 000. Now, that's not comparable to an orbital trip, but technology develops rapidly, and notice how much space technology have developed recently now that private companies are getting involved. SpaceX have already demonstrated ways to reduce launch costs, and I don't doubt that private companies will continue to make spaceflight cheaper and cheaper. Especially if they start to develop hybrid SSTO vehicles instead of just pure rockets. Funnily enough, I'm pessimistic where you are optimistic. Asteroid mining requires advanced and expensive infrastructure in space, either where the asteroids are (if we mine them there) or near Earth (if we bring them here before mining them). It will happen eventually, but not anytime soon.

That's a possibility (one that didn't actually cross my mind), but it's fairly unlikely. While there is currently a lot that we don't know about the human brain, improvements are being made at a very rapid pace. We are already working on simulating whole brains on supercomputers, and the level of detail that we can see is constantly improving. My estimation is that we will understand practically everything about the brain before, say 2060, but we will probably before that be able to build a human level AI (albeit one that operate on somewhat different principles).

Eventually AI will replace all jobs that a human can perform (and a lot that we can't), even the ones requiring intuition. Saying anything else is equivalent to saying there is something magical with the human brain that can't be replicated artificially. Or in other words: We already know that machines with full human capacity in everyway are possible, because they already exist: They are called humans. This will lead to job loss, but since it will be gradual and obvious, we will be able to intervene before it's to late. Exactly how I'm not certain, but I don't doubt that people that are smarter than me can figure it out. All things considered, I have a very positive view of the rise of AI.

The Gear VR is a lot better. I would even say that it is better than the Oculus Rift DK1 (not the consumer version, however). It does however need a Samsung phone to work. I agree. The PC VR headsets are currently a bit expensive. I will personally wait a generation or two before I buy one. The Gear VR however is definitely worth the money. And despite being an entry level device it is very well polished. Definitely good enough for Minecraft. Although it did crash once for me while playing...

I voted that the future will be very positive. That doesn't mean that I think that there aren't any problems, but I think that the progress we will make will far outweigh those problems. By 2035 self-driving electric cars will be mainstream. Virtual reality will be much more sophisticated, even if we will not be able to achieve it in comercial products by directly influencing the brain (Yet! That will come later). Artificial intelligence will have advanced to the point where it is almost on par with human intelligence thanks to neural networks and a deeper understanding of the human brain. Cancer will be a lot more treatable, and have a significantly higher survival rate. Robots will perform surgery, thus significantly increasing survival rate, since when these robots do make a mistake, all robots will just be patched to avoid to make the same mistake again (the same thing applies to self-driving cars). Drones will deliver packages, and be used by various industries, such as farming, mining, forestry and the police. A manned Mars mission will occur during this decade, likely by a private company (like SpaceX). We will have several space stations, most privately owned by companies, and inflatable (like those from Bigelow Aerospace). Space will still remain somewhat exclusive, but far more people will be able to go to space. The two most obvious problems for the future I see is that surveillance will increase significantly, and since AI will replace a lot of jobs (mostly white collar jobs), there will be a lot of unemployment. This will however be on a large scale, happen gradually and it will be very clear long beforehand that we will be heading in this direction. Therefore various interventions will be put in place in time to counter this.

Just recently, Minecraft for the Gear VR was released. Have anyone here tired it yet? What did you think about it? I just spent about two hours playing it, and I think it's awesome! When I was caving, I really felt on edge all the time. It's the most intense experience in virtual reality I have ever had thus far. Although I do miss an option to sprint, and several times while caving I wanted to press F3 to see how far down I was. I guess we can't have everything. Still, it's an amazing experience and could definitely be one of those "killer apps" that will get VR truly off the ground. So I would like to hear your thoughts. Have you brought this app, and what did you think about it? Do you WANT to play it? Have you tried this in multiplayer?