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Ask HN: AI “white mirror” – what are some inspiring future visions you've seen?

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Re: Ask HN: AI “white mirror” – what are some inspiring future visions you've seen?

#61

Post by rvba »

Self driving cars, or at least semi automatic cars will be very big. If the car can truly self drive, it can be rebuild to be a kind of a "hotel" car - with much more space.

So you can do makeup en route to work. Or you can rest en route to work. The car self drive at night so you sleep inside (like in those sleeper trains) - you might not need a hotel.

The car can also take a grandparent to take care of grandchildren, so useful for old people.

In theory traffic could be optimized too; taking a random car - instead of your own, or commutting in a group, but I doubt it will happen. People prefer to ride in their own car.

Not having to steer the car can free like 1-2 hours per day (depending on commute time), what is big.

Also work-from-home is quite inspiring future vision. People were talking about it for years and it finally happens, at least a bit. WFH sighnificantly improves quality if life.

Also what happened to drones that can bring parcels to people? When will this happen? On a side note, people from USA seem to dislike / not know "parcel lockers" ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcel_locker ) which are very convenient. I think Poland has 20 000 of them already. I dont understand the idea that the courier drops a parcel on your pouch that someone can steal. If you worked from home and a drone brought it (and notified you) then sure. But why no parcel lockers now?

Re: Ask HN: AI “white mirror” – what are some inspiring future visions you've seen?

#62

Post by thealchemistdev »

joe__f wrote: post #45
mckeed wrote: post #43

This story features part of the world going Black Mirror at the same time as another part goes (arguably) White Mirror: Manna – Two Views of Humanity's Future by Marshall Brain https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

Sounds like The Time Machine (from your description, I didn't read the article)

It's a short story. Highly recommended.

Re: Ask HN: AI “white mirror” – what are some inspiring future visions you've seen?

#63

Post by msmenardi »

jpadkins wrote: post #53
rchaud wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 years ago I wrote my academic thesis claiming electronic medical records would fix these things too. They won't. An early warning system is useless if there isn't any funding for public health programs that could help people address said warnings.

> funding for public health programs Why do you believe the solution needs to come from tax collected revenue? If you had a way to make people live healthier, don't you think people would pay you for it?

Unfortunately people often don't go to the doctor because it's too expensive. Why would that change if you added more things to the doctor's toolbox?

Re: Ask HN: AI “white mirror” – what are some inspiring future visions you've seen?

#65

Post by Aaronstotle »

jedberg wrote: post #36
namaria wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah op yikes to jumping to 'black = bad, white = good' metaphor space. What is wrong with you?

You're getting downvoted but I literally just got a memo at work last week reminding people to stop using the terms blacklist and whitelist and switch to block-list and allow-list.

Such a waste of energy and time to get upset at people using these words. Its not like using the word block-list and allow-list was the problem in the first place and using different words wont change anything.

Re: Ask HN: AI “white mirror” – what are some inspiring future visions you've seen?

#66

Post by mike_hearn »

The gist of most optimistic future visions (more than 1-2 years out) is massively increased wealth. For example that's the root of why Star Trek TNG is optimistic, so it's useful to ponder what it means in practice.

One of the biggest ways wealth gets deployed today is on old age and healthcare. We live longer but the retirement age doesn't move, and pension deficits build up. With radical productivity improvements from better AI and medical treatments we can outrun this and even consider lowering the retirement age. In the distant future we could consider an optional retirement age of 40, although "retirement" in such a world would obviously be blurry concept. It would be more like the point at which you get a lot more freedom in what you choose to do rather than the end-point of work.

Another way wealth was deployed in the 20th century was driving down the cost of air travel, but there's plenty more that can be done there. With more automation (pilots, aircrew, ATC) we can radically increase the number of flights taking place, flooding the market with supply. In the future we'll all fly business class whenever and wherever we like, and it'll cost nearly nothing.

One of the most profound ways generative AI will impact us is through entertainment. In the same way web video like YouTube made content creation available to the masses, creating vast wealth in the process, generative AI combined with technologies like Unreal 5+ will let people tell sophisticated stories in 3D using AI generated assets. Stories that the big studios and TV firms would never sign off on will get told, and we'll be able to spend far more of our time enjoying, creating and earning money from novel entertainment.

Finding true love is tough, and many never quite manage it. Dating could be revolutionized by AI. Chat to your lovable assistant and it'll get to know what you're like and what kind of person would like you. The human-like nature of its skills will prompt you to reflect upon your own wishes, and NNs trained on huge databases of successful matches will help you search for your soul mate. There'll be more happy families, fewer divorces and more quality time spent with people who are just right for you.

These are just a few random ideas, not very good ones based on only a few minutes of extrapolation. You can probably do better.

Re: Ask HN: AI “white mirror” – what are some inspiring future visions you've seen?

#67

Post by invisiblerobot »

lacker wrote: post #20

In a distant sense, I find the Culture series of novels to be an inspiring vision of the future. People develop AI and technology to master nature on a planetary scale, and largely live peaceful, happy lives. In a nearby sense, I am inspired every time I do random household chores, by thinking that maybe AI and robots will be able to do this soon. Folding clothes, picking up toys, putting things away where they go, c…

Agree except for the cooking. Like gardening, its a very rewarding privilege if you don't have to so the other shit

Re: Ask HN: AI “white mirror” – what are some inspiring future visions you've seen?

#68

Post by invisiblerobot »

lacker wrote: post #20

In a distant sense, I find the Culture series of novels to be an inspiring vision of the future. People develop AI and technology to master nature on a planetary scale, and largely live peaceful, happy lives. In a nearby sense, I am inspired every time I do random household chores, by thinking that maybe AI and robots will be able to do this soon. Folding clothes, picking up toys, putting things away where they go, c…

Agree except for the cooking. Like gardening, its a very rewarding privilege if you don't have to do the other shit

Re: Ask HN: AI “white mirror” – what are some inspiring future visions you've seen?

#69

Post by f0e4c2f7 »

lacker wrote: post #20

In a distant sense, I find the Culture series of novels to be an inspiring vision of the future. People develop AI and technology to master nature on a planetary scale, and largely live peaceful, happy lives. In a nearby sense, I am inspired every time I do random household chores, by thinking that maybe AI and robots will be able to do this soon. Folding clothes, picking up toys, putting things away where they go, c…

To me this is the perfect answer.

Star Trek is good too. Particularly once you get into the ship computer and holodeck concepts. But Banks writes so specifically about about what it would be like for a civilization to thrive working together with strong ai.

The books together form a loose philosophy that is like Seinfeld for AI conversations.

Re: Ask HN: AI “white mirror” – what are some inspiring future visions you've seen?

#70

Post by RGamma »

ajkjk wrote: post #4
notmindthegap wrote: post #2

AI babysitter for infants to supplement – not replace – parents. Captures audio / biometrics and responds to the baby with targeted music, positive affirmations, cooing, etc, to promote positive emotional state. Also notifies parents of states that require their intervention, like hunger, soiled diaper, abnormal vitals, inconsolability. Parents can take a break, watch a movie, entertain friends, etc, with the comfort…

That's 100% black mirror, not white mirror. Babies being raised by machines is dystopian as hell.

Already a thing. The machines are called smartphone/YT/TT/IG, etc
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