# The Artificial Intelligence Problem (or not)



## r.nitrogen (Nov 13, 2018)

Why do you think those in the field of Machine Learning and AI (maybe some robotics engineers) feel the need to implement such vast and far-reaching neural networks of machines, data mining databases and continue to research the breakthrough in Artificial Consciousness?  The computer, robots, advanced specialized supercomputers -- these are awe-inspiring modern wonders of the world.  Everyone knows Excel sucks, and entering data is like the 4th or so rung of hell.  But, with a simply scripting language like Python and a list of the data we want logically compiled, we can make a machine do all that dirty work in under 1 minute.  Maybe to some, _enough is enough _is defeatist on its face, or maybe trust in the TelCo monopolies and DARPA and Catholics in Action are obscure enough for most of the world that nobody looks into the investments that In-Q-Tel (it's an Elon Musk startup for those of you who don't know- it builds MagLev neo-titanium textiles) has been making in regards to AI and in particular to Palantir, Invacio, and the especially disturbing startups like AZte Vision.

Maybe I'm being reactionary.  It could be argued that despite having studied Computer Science and InfoSec at high levels, I am perhaps bitter that I never got a doctorate in robotics or BioTech.  I just think that when we are working towards creating what could effectively be as all-knowing as God, as "logical" as Stalin or Mao and as unlimited in reach as our very farthest space exploration vessels, we might need to say that the edge that would be given to us in economic standing or in Cyber Warfare is little gain for a potential extinction-level event.

I would love to hear your take on this, as many of you work in these higher-level, more clandestine technology sectors.  I'm not a moron asking for some sweet gossip, just a view on AI, machines and war/civvie applications.


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## 4859 (Nov 13, 2018)

I'm not worried about as something as fantastical as an extinction level event.

It's a classic creative destruction problem (New creations destroy old jobs that are now obsolete), similar to plenty that have happened in the past since the industrial revolution (and before of course) with one key difference.

In times past the costs of the destruction of the old obsolete industries by being replaced by newer better faster and cheaper methods were not only offset, but surpassed by utilizing freed up human resources to be deployed elsewhere, in the new job markets and demands created by the new industry/method.

With ai, you just have robots doing the same job, with little to no new jobs being created by them, particularly when compared to the amount of jobs destroyed by them.

When the horseshoe smith became obsolete because of the automobile, there was a huge new market for all things automobile. One that rapidly grew much larger and employed many more people than the previous industry

When the 8 million human US truck drivers are replaced by the ai self driving semis....

That's it. There is no new industry created by that that's going to need 10, 15, 20 million workers.


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## Ranger Psych (Nov 13, 2018)

4859 said:


> When the 8 million human US truck drivers are replaced by the ai self driving semis....




Full. Fucking. Stop.

Everyone that thinks that AI trucks are going to magically take away jobs in the trucking industry is deluded.

Lemme break this down two times. First for dry van or refrigerated rolling up to/from walmart. Let's see if ya'll can identify where the human quotient in the equation is an absofuckingtootly necessary portion of the mystery mix getting your random bullshit from the random manufacturers to the random locations you buy/use/need/want/musthaverightfuckingnow...

Show up with empty trailer on time or earlier at a location you can't park inside so you're violating no parking zones with a goddamn big rig
check in with human who may/may not be at the desk so your time is wasted
move through yard dodging other truckers whos skill levels/competence/coherence vary greatly
open doors of trailer
back into assigned specific dock
put chock on, remove air line
sit monitoring for a green light to turn red, meaning you're being loaded
wait for red to turn green, at which point you pull out and depending on location now you either
check in with the office to get the specific paperwork and serialized seal related to your cargo
check the back of the trailer for said paperwork and seal
check with the dude that comes and tells you they're done in the trailer
unchock, replace air line
pull out
inspect cargo for proper securement according to cargo type
inspect paperwork and air gauges for proper weight and balance on vehicle AND RAISE HELL IF WRONG
apply proper securement if more is necessary for proper transit/unloading safety
close doors and apply seal(s)
leave location

go crosscountry moving shit

Arrive at location exactly on time, no sooner no later because they're kicking you off property if you're too early or late
Check in with guards that don't give a fuck about you because you ain't walmart, they check your identification, truck number, trailer number, bills, seal number, shoe size and blood type
drive to secondary staging dodging yard spotters doing 30mph more than your 15mph yard limit oh and they have right of way
check your ass in with the shipping department, oh yeah that time spent in guard checkin doesn't count as being checked in, the time matters here
put the loaded trailer in the area specified
Physically FIND an empty trailer they may or may not have actually assigned you and may or may not actually be residing in the area that they are supposed to and may or may not actually even be empty
hook to said trailer
go back and check in with shipping regarding your empty trailer number
move to guard shack for guard inspection of trailer to ensure you aren't leaving with anything you're not supposed to
on to the next episode

There's a whole lotta human touches there that the shipper and receiver are not going to touch as a pretty basic rule, as they all fall under transport of the cargo, which is the responsibility of the company and more specifically the drivers of that company as they are the ones that will be subject to random inspections for weight/safety. The onus for anything wrong with that cargo is on the trucking company, anything wrong with the truck or trailer(s), anything wrong with the paperwork or permitting.  All of these things have to be confirmed by a human who's actually involved with the shipment and knows the regulations. It's not like a DOT cop is going to ticket the SHIPPER for packaging hazmat incorrectly, it's going to be the company transporting it.

Now let's do the holy grail of "fuck skynet" aka open deck aka flatbed work... what I do for a living now.

Show up at appropriate location at appropriate time
Park truck
Confirm cargo to be loaded with onsite people
confirm cargo weight
confirm cargo loading order/configuration
confirm cargo is safe to carry
manipulate various trailer controls to put it into loading configuration
deploy multiple ramps to be able to load said cargo
drive cargo onto trailer where appropriate
stow ramps
supervise safe and proper loading/placement of additional cargo on trailer
check air gauges for weight distribution and legality of transit
determine off cargo weight and placement what type and amount of securement is necessary for safe transit
determine off cargo weight distribution and states to be traveled through, what configuration trailer needs to be in for safe and legal transit
throw straps over cargo
throw chains over cargo
apply appropriate protection means between straps, chains, and cargo to protect both from damage
hook straps to trailer
winch straps down
hook chains to appropriate tiedown points on trailer
hook chains to appropriate tiedown points on cargo
use appropriate securement devices to secure chains depending on cargo type
tighten chains
unfold tarps on cargo
secure tarps to trailer in appropriate configuration
confirm paperwork is correct for cargo amount/type
depart down the road
stop within 50 miles and check every single securement used as well as cargo to determine if securement is safe/adequate or if more is needed
adjust securement as necessary
add securement as necessary
add protection as necessary for securement/cargo
continue driving
stop within 3 hours/150 miles and recheck
continue until at delivery site at appropriate time/place, having confirmed delivery time/place while enroute as it can/does change
place vehicle in appropriate location
deploy ramps
undo and stow all securement
supervise unloading of cargo
conduct unloading of cargo needing operation
stow ramps
depart to next job

Sorry, but AI ain't gonna do these examples of my bread and butter unless you have a Golem 25 rocking it outside the vehicle.


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

RP must be a trucker. I agree a lot of tasks that require human accomplishments. What about an AI driver and a human assistant? Maybe even an AI codriver while on the road to get beyond the mandatory stop meter. I think that would be more logical...to start.


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

DC said:


> RP must be a trucker. I agree a lot of tasks that require human accomplishments. What about an AI driver and a human assistant? Maybe even an AI codriver while on the road to get beyond the mandatory stop meter. I think that would be more logical...to start.


Only if every vehicle is AI driven. Add one 4 wheeler driver and the stupid shit they do in and you can't program for that. You just plan you driving out to get the load where it needs to be when it needs to be there.

Oh and fuck tarps.


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> Only if every vehicle is AI driven. Add one 4 wheeler driver and the stupid shit they do in and you can't program for that. You just plan you driving out to get the load where it needs to be when it needs to be there.
> 
> Oh and fuck tarps.


Well then maybe they have their own route like toll roads. Call it AI only.


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

DC said:


> Well then maybe they have their own route like toll roads. Call it AI only.


Who is going to pay for it, enforce it and maintain it?


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## 4859 (Nov 13, 2018)

Ranger Psych said:


> Full. Fucking. Stop.
> 
> Everyone that thinks that AI trucks are going to magically take away jobs in the trucking industry is deluded.
> 
> ...





DC said:


> RP must be a trucker. I agree a lot of tasks that require human accomplishments. What about an AI driver and a human assistant? Maybe even an AI codriver while on the road to get beyond the mandatory stop meter. I think that would be more logical...to start.



Do you really think they are going to pay the human assistant ie the truck babysitter anywhere near as much as they pay a highly skilled, experienced professional like RB?

And unfortunately I don't see the vast majority of what rp brought up requiring a driver.

They are either already easily capable of current automation technology, or easily replaceable through much cheaper ground labor at the stops.


These companies wouldn't be spending millions, and have investors pumping millions Into them if they didn't think they'd be able to sell their shit.

And the main draw of the self driving truck, is getting rid of the cost of employing the highly and specifically skilled rp's of the world.


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> Who is going to pay for it, enforce it and maintain it?


Who pays for toll roads, infrastructure now? Taxes. Not a new novel idea really. Enforcement? Cameras are used widely for toll roads. 
Truckers now pay more taxes and fees than ever. Then we allow trucks from mexico freely use our roads without paying anything. I digress.


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

4859 said:


> Do you really think they are going to pay the human assistant ie the truck babysitter anywhere near as much as they pay a highly skilled, experienced professional like RB?
> 
> And unfortunately I don't see the vast majority of what rp brought up requiring a driver.
> 
> ...


Nothing new here. Greedy billionaires are constantly looking for an better way to make more...then Atlas Shrugged. 

Like it or not AI is the future.


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

RP= Ranger Psych
RB=Razorback, a different member 

How can an AI do a load check? It is a federal requirement to do them at specific times. Cheaper ground labor at the stops? Do you have any idea what lumpers charge now to just run a pallet jack? Add in the hours it can take to secure and tarp a load and you are talking hundreds of dollars for only a few trucks a day. A local siding company processes ~50 trucks a day, all tarped load. Tarping takes between 1-3 hours depending on the load. It's not quick or easy, each one weighs around 100 pounds and trailers take 2 with loads being 8 feet high (hence the fuck tarps). If you don't secure them properly and check them while driving you can destroy them at a cost of $400+ each. Local labor isn't going to care, they are having to mule several of them around everyday now.

Everything RP mentioned is what a driver has to do now. It's not just driving from point A to point B, especially with open deck. If a load is wrong who do you blame, the AI driver or the ground crew hundreds or thousands of miles away? Driver check everything before they leave.


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

DC said:


> Who pays for toll roads, infrastructure now? Taxes. Not a new novel idea really. Enforcement? Cameras are used widely for toll roads.
> Truckers now pay more taxes and fees than ever. Then we allow trucks from mexico freely use our roads without paying anything. I digress.


Oh I know how.much tolls for trucks cost. There is a reason certain states are avoided. One state just raised the toll for trucks only by over 30%. Cars don't have to pay anymore. But you want to charge people MORE for a road they will never be able to use (what I meant by enforcement, can't have cars in the AI only road)? Lets see how that goes over...


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## 4859 (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> RP= Ranger Psych
> RB=Razorback, a different member
> 
> How can an AI do a load check? It is a federal requirement to do them at specific times. Cheaper ground labor at the stops? Do you have any idea what lumpers charge now to just run a pallet jack? Add in the hours it can take to secure and tarp a load and you are talking hundreds of dollars for only a few trucks a day. A local siding company processes ~50 trucks a day, all tarped load. Tarping takes between 1-3 hours depending on the load. It's not quick or easy, each one weighs around 100 pounds and trailers take 2 with loads being 8 feet high (hence the fuck tarps). If you don't secure them properly and check them while driving you can destroy them at a cost of $400+ each. Local labor isn't going to care, they are having to mule several of them around everyday now.
> ...



Argh you caught It! Damn you autocorrect! 

A constant Wi-Fi signal can send continuous data about the truck like it's weight for monitoring.

They will only really care about wrong loads, if it ends up costing them more money than getting rid of the rp's would save them.

Regulations are only A lobbying push away from being deregulated.


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> RP= Ranger Psych
> RB=Razorback, a different member
> 
> How can an AI do a load check? It is a federal requirement to do them at specific times. Cheaper ground labor at the stops? Do you have any idea what lumpers charge now to just run a pallet jack? Add in the hours it can take to secure and tarp a load and you are talking hundreds of dollars for only a few trucks a day. A local siding company processes ~50 trucks a day, all tarped load. Tarping takes between 1-3 hours depending on the load. It's not quick or easy, each one weighs around 100 pounds and trailers take 2 with loads being 8 feet high (hence the fuck tarps). If you don't secure them properly and check them while driving you can destroy them at a cost of $400+ each. Local labor isn't going to care, they are having to mule several of them around everyday now.
> ...


Like I suggested a human assistant and believe technology is going to progress in ever facet as well. We can fight it, not believe it or whatever but the future is coming faster than we think. I grew up without microwaves, cell phones, computers and electric cars...


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

4859 said:


> Argh you caught It! Damn you autocorrect!
> 
> A constant Wi-Fi signal can send continuous data about the truck like it's weight for monitoring.
> 
> ...


A load check isn't about weight though it's about checking the securement to make sure your load isn't going anywhere. You should also be checking tires while stopped.


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> Oh I know how.much tolls for trucks cost. There is a reason certain states are avoided. One state just raised the toll for trucks only by over 30%. Cars don't have to pay anymore. But you want to charge people MORE for a road they will never be able to use (what I meant by enforcement, can't have cars in the AI only road)? Lets see how that goes over...


No cars? Easy. Automatic huge fines via plate cam directly to your bank account, vehicle registration, etc.


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> A load check isn't about weight though it's about checking the securement to make sure your load isn't going anywhere. You should also be checking tires while stopped.


We have TPI in vehicles. Loads can be sensor equipped to notify of issues. I’ve seen it done on rockets and satellites. Right now it’s cost. Someday could be.


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

DC said:


> No cars? Easy. Automatic huge fines via plate cam directly to your bank account, vehicle registration, etc.


Great in theory but I was surprised at the number of cars out there with no plates at all. Add in the fact that fine or no they are in the AI road which circles back to unpredictable 4 wheelers and all cars needing to be AI. I know it has it's place but starting the the vehicles most likely to kill someone they hit is not the place. Work up to them...


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

DC said:


> We have TPI in vehicles. Loads can be sensor equipped to notify of issues. I’ve seen it done on rockets and satellites. Right now it’s cost. Someday could be.


How does that physically check straps for wear or tighten them? How can it see the load has shifted and needs more securement thrown? Ever carried a load if round steel? It's hinky as shit and you have to be very careful.


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> Great in theory but I was surprised at the number of cars out there with no plates at all. Add in the fact that fine or no they are in the AI road which circles back to unpredictable 4 wheelers and all cars needing to be AI. I know it has it's place but starting the the vehicles most likely to kill someone they hit is not the place. Work up to them...


Then engine shutdown technology and driver take over. Remember as AI begins in one arena it will spread to others.


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## 4859 (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> A load check isn't about weight though it's about checking the securement to make sure your load isn't going anywhere. You should also be checking tires while stopped.



Also easily done 'good enough' via sensors in the cargo area.

You guys seem to be hung up on the fact that it's not going to be as good, or even anywhere near as good as the real deal.

Of course it's not. Never has been. ESPECIALLY not when it first starts. It's cheaper, faster and brings in more profit with less overhead. And that's what matters to them. Not RP feeding his family


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> How does that physically check straps for wear or tighten them? How can it see the load has shifted and needs more securement thrown? Ever carried a load if round steel? It's hinky as shit and you have to be very careful.


I am very familiar with what are saying as for loads go. Again technology with figure it out. There are self tightening mechanisms. Maybe an block system to correct load shift. Who knows? I’m saying someday all this will come to pass. Unless Ragnarok happens first😉


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

DC said:


> Then engine shutdown technology and driver take over. Remember as AI begins in one arena it will spread to others.


In your scenario you still have a driver, in the other just local workers who loaded it. You are talking teaming with an AI truck, not 100% replacement.

I'm not stubborn or stupid, I know AI is the future but so many out there want to have it now without thinking it through. I have appreciated the civil debate however, other forums it degrades to kindergarten level fingers in ears because AI is the bestest ever and it means I can never leave my chair...lol There is no current good answer but seeing what is tossed around is fun.


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> In your scenario you still have a driver, in the other just local workers who loaded it. You are talking teaming with an AI truck, not 100% replacement.
> 
> I'm not stubborn or stupid, I know AI is the future but so many out there want to have it now without thinking it through. I have appreciated the civil debate however, other forums it degrades to kindergarten level fingers in ears...lol



Humans will always be involved somewhere. We are a very greedy organism. Our lust for power pushes us to it. The future will be really rich and really poor. Don’t forget humanity is impatient. They want it now for power. They can have it.

PS @medicchick your are far from stupid...stubborn aren’t we all👍🏾


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## 4859 (Nov 13, 2018)

medicchick said:


> In your scenario you still have a driver, in the other just local workers who loaded it. You are talking teaming with an AI truck, not 100% replacement.
> 
> I'm not stubborn or stupid, I know AI is the future but so many out there want to have it now without thinking it through. I have appreciated the civil debate however, other forums it degrades to kindergarten level fingers in ears...lol There is no current good answer but seeing what is tossed around is fun.



Well we all know why this forum is so exceptional compared to the others.

I don't want it at all. Not in the commercial market at least.

I don't feel the gains for the corporations are going to be worth the human cost.

I mean like I pointed out earlier the babysitter for that ai team up isn't going to be paid anywhere near what people who actually drive the trucks are being paid. And they will either have to accept another huge cut in pay, like the 30% after the deregulations of the motor carrier act of 1980, or they will be replaced by less skilled and cheaper truck babysitters.


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

Ocoka said:


> Re the OP with relation to military applications. AI is the future of warfare but vulnerable to NEMP/NNEMP. Humans have to know how to fight when the battlespace goes dark.


EMP yo.


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

Ocoka said:


> Re the OP with relation to military applications. AI is the future of warfare but vulnerable to NEMP/NNEMP. Humans have to know how to fight when the battlespace goes dark.


You would hope but complacency is the American way.


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## Box (Nov 13, 2018)

AI wont get a DUI
AI can be programed follow all traffic laws
AI wont make false insurance claims
AI wont beat a spouse
AI wont sexually assault another AI
AI wont hog the mic'

AI wont give you a hug that brightens up a gloomy day


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## RackMaster (Nov 13, 2018)

Larry Sharpe the Libertarian Governor nominee in NY State had a great idea for AI vehicles and infrastructure maintenance.  License out advertising space, on bridges, highways, etc. and have the maintenance as part of the contract.  Then say Amazon has it, let them build separated lanes or complete freeways for AI only.  He went into it with Joe Rogan. 






Larry Sharpe For Governor of New York 2018


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## 4859 (Nov 13, 2018)

RackMaster said:


> Larry Sharpe the Libertarian Governor nominee in NY State had a great idea for AI vehicles and infrastructure maintenance.  License out advertising space, on bridges, highways, etc. and have the maintenance as part of the contract.  Then say Amazon has it, let them build separated lanes or complete freeways for AI only.  He went into it with Joe Rogan.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That could be very lucrative and effective for the very rich involved.

So.....

What about RP?


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

Box said:


> AI wont get a DUI
> AI can be programed follow all traffic laws
> AI wont make false insurance claims
> AI wont beat a spouse
> ...


You mean I'll no longer know if it has it's panties in?


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## medicchick (Nov 13, 2018)

4859 said:


> That could be very lucrative and effective for the very rich involved.
> 
> So.....
> 
> What about RP?


I let him sleep in before the Five Finger Death Punch concert tonight. I'm sure he'll be along shortly.


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## Ranger Psych (Nov 13, 2018)

You guys aren't getting it. This whole ground crew idea is a non-starter for 80% of shipping across the US.

The shipper makes the product.
The receiver wants the product.

NEITHER OF THEM WANT ANYTHING MORE TO DO WITH GETTING IT THERE THAN THEY HAVE TO.

Example,This load:



Ok, ya'll probably don't even see what you're looking at, because you guys are like every other shipper/receiver on the planet for the most part. Ignorant. It's not that you're stupid (and I'm not calling anyone that), but it's that you literally don't know the huge amount regulations that are accessible and in the open. You would rely on me, and my knowledge of the regulations for shipping, in order to make sure your stuff gets from A to B as desired and in the condition it was in when loaded. Pretty much the norm. What's an AI going to do? Display the FMCSA securement regulations on a display on the side and automatically open some boxes for load straps and chains? I think not.

fun fact: there's more commercial vehicle regulations than there are commercial aviation regulations.

If this had been loaded by the shipper and by the shipper only without any input from me, onto an AI pulling the flatbed, it would have rolled out the door illegally. He would have just had shit piled on with no way to secure it, it wouldn't have BEEN secured, and it would have pleasantly just gone out the gate and put a alloy spear through someone's windshield at the first bump.

There is no legal mechanism to find the shipper responsible for cargo misloading/packaging unless it's an in-depth hazmat inspection and even then, it's going to be a court battle. Everything as far as legal responsibility for the shipment itself and it's safe conduct from point A to B is on the driver, and on the company, depending on where it falls on the matrix of "who do we cite".

There's 3 entities involved in the whole shipment, and only 1 is criminally liable during the entire shipping process, so that 1 is going to make sure they can actually make sure the other 2 aren't trying to pull a fast one. That means you need a human as part of the shipment, and minimum wage isn't going to cut it. I have a former DOE OST broham who does civvie side nuclear transport. The amount of mislabeled, mispackaged shit is astounding and he gets paid the big bucks to ship that stuff, as he has to know ALL the regulations to be able to inspect, repackage as necessary, properly secure, and properly transport said cargo. Open deck is the same way, specific cargos need specific securement depending on weight, position, size, etc etc. Look at how people tie shit down in a pickup truck bed or on a regular utility trailer, then look at my trailer. Big difference between what you'd get minimum wage quality and what you get with a professional doing the job.

There's 24 different independent securements on that load to make sure that everything on that deck doesn't go anywhere. Chains, straps. Edge protection to make sure things don't cut straps. Edge protection to make sure chains don't damage stuff.   

That deck is several thousand visual and tactile inspection points. What AI is going to do those? Expecting an AI to do that is literally expecting an AI to be able to JMPI a jumper. Good luck with that. How's a load sensor going to help in the middle of nowhere if it pings that something broke? Human will have seen it start to fray and protected it/replaced it, sensor is just a GO/NOGO thing. Now your AI truck is deadlined 200 miles from anywhere on the side of I-10, waiting for hours for a rescue crew to replace a fricking 2" strap. congrats, the truck's stopped. Now instead of making money it's costing money.

What ground crew is going to do those when it's the mass of shipping in the US, which is irregular freight from point A to B? What ground crew is going to be going to bumfuck Montana in the middle of farmland to a lat-long then unloading a new skidsteer and teaching the owner the basics, then loading their old one as a tradein?

The only way an AI truck could do my job is if it came with a T-800 to do the securement too. 

It's hard enough to find all the drivers that the industry needs specifically because of the fact that they won't fucking pay us what we're worth... which is why I am an owner operator, I bill the same rate as the big guys but *I* make more because 1/4 or more of the load's rate isn't going to support corporate bullshit.  

As it is, except for rare local positions, you aren't paid hourly at all. It's per mile you move cargo. The point of going AI trucking is to cut out the 1/4 - 1/3 of the load rate that goes to pay/insure the driver, and instead pocket it in the corporate pocket. You also don't understand the industry either, as 70% of the trucks on the road today are part of 10 or less truck fleets, with about half being straight owner ops, single human shows like myself. There's not going to be any small fleets or owner ops like myself buying an AI truck. That shit's going to be way more expensive than my rig now, and my rig now, new, is >$140k. Yep, my big rig costs more than a Maserati. How ya like me now?

Someone mentioned a human assistant. So you're going to have a human ride along, but not actually operate the vehicle, or otherwise cut their pay as the vehicle doesn't require their operation at all.... So we already discussed the point that going AI is intended to remove the human.  Now you want to pay someone even MORE SHIT (plenty of drivers at megafleets are barely clearing a grand a week after taxes, with operation of the vehicle inherent in the job) and have them away from their home/family riding a truck they have no say in where it goes and isn't going to be stopping for piss breaks shits or anything else, because the whole point of going AI is being able to have a low cost vehicle going at the most aerodynamically efficient speed and configuration, across the US, nonstop, so your amazon dildos get to your doorstep in time for you to go fuck yourself.  

Oh, and that last 3 word bit is what every driver in the industry right now would tell you if you told them now they're an AI bitch and getting paid half their current rate if not less.

Now fedex? UPS? That could be AI'ed relatively easy. I'm sure everyone who's driven past a wiggle wagon set of doubles/triples is completely comfortable with letting a computer handle a 100ft multi-pivot-point semi-stable combination vehicle on the roadways next to them at 70mph.  But, they're doing distribution center to distribution center work, so they would own it wholly from A to Z and THERE they could have the human checks to make sure the robotruck can do it's thing.  Except those humans would be Teamsters. Think Puerto Rico was bad with the truckers union striking after the hurricane? Pffft let's replace the vast majority of employees of the biggest (dirtiest) union in the USA with robots and see what happens.


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## Ranger Psych (Nov 13, 2018)

DC said:


> Who pays for toll roads, infrastructure now? Taxes. Not a new novel idea really. Enforcement? Cameras are used widely for toll roads.
> Truckers now pay more taxes and fees than ever. Then we allow trucks from mexico freely use our roads without paying anything. I digress.



IFTA. They can't cross the border without being IFTA compliant. Every mile they run in every state they run in is logged and they pay accordingly. Just like how every state I go through gets their per mile taxes. Also why I don't do toll roads as a general rule, I'm already being taxed for every mile I drive, now you want to charge me per mile twice? FAAAA Q


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## Florida173 (Nov 13, 2018)

Went to the nvidia gpu conference here in dc a couple of weeks ago. Some really great things going on with regards to ML and deep neural networks bring processed through GPU architecture. I'm pretty excited with the end to end data science infrastructure through rapids.

In my opinion.. People afraid of AI obviously don't know what it is. 

Also.. Did you guys know AI is responsible for over 86% of Netflix watched shows and over a third of amazon purchases?


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## DC (Nov 13, 2018)

Ranger Psych said:


> IFTA. They can't cross the border without being IFTA compliant. Every mile they run in every state they run in is logged and they pay accordingly. Just like how every state I go through gets their per mile taxes. Also why I don't do toll roads as a general rule, I'm already being taxed for every mile I drive, now you want to charge me per mile twice? FAAAA Q


Border runners should stop in a staging area and off load to you guys.
Toll roads were a comparison to create a similar system for just AI vehicles.
AI is here. Can’t stop it. Skynet is coming...


----------



## Dienekes (Nov 13, 2018)

Economically, you might be surprised at the effects of automation. Acemoglu and friends (prominent and incredibly prolific economist at MIT) found that automation actually has 2 mechanisms: substituting and complementing workers. Routine tasks are generally substituted while non-routine tasks complement workers. The effect this has is to really wheedle out the middle-skill job (read middle-class) generally because these are routine and not too complicated for machines like (data entry, going over documents, ordering new parts when your inventory gets below a certain level, etc.), but on the other hand, the more blue-collar jobs that are too complicated for robots are seeing increased returns to earnings and labor supply and the more complicated high-skill jobs, say a doctor, are being complemented aka making part of the job easier so that you can focus more of your efforts on the more human-touch necessary tasks are also making more money. So automation is good for low-skill and high-skill workers while bad for middle-skill workers.

Additionally, automation doesn't necessarily kill jobs and may, in fact, create higher paying jobs than the ones they replace as someone mentioned creative destruction. These systems are complex, especially the machines that require maintenance. One job I worked saw the CNC lathe down for a week because the representative that the servicing company sent out took that long to fix the machine. And I know this guy was a freaking expert on this thing because I talked to him about it. You'd be surprised how little it has been studied, but like I said, this guy the people he writes papers with have done a pretty interesting job.

As for the AI and robots, the type of integration people are talking about will take 40-60 years minimum in my mind because 1) the technology has to be there and 2) society needs sufficient conditions for certain things to happen and politically and culturally, these things take time. It took a long time for the car to effectively replace the horse just like it takes a long time for the most impressive technology to work its way past the big market makers to the smaller businesses that enable the damn market. 

To the trucking industry assuming 30 years down the road, what about having a completely AI driven truck, having AI-driven logistics companies staff ground crews to hit all the loading and unloading operations at a given area of the city (industrial, commercial, etc.) since these are usually zoned similarly. Ex: 1 ground crew (2-4 person) hits all the stops in a X mile area for the Best Buys, Targets, Walmarts, etc. Then, have weigh stations staffed with a smaller 1-2 person checking crew for when sensors note some problem that isn't quite stop worthy, but could be adjusted. Finally, have a high-mobility crew transported by helicopter (with potentially a set number of helicopter landing zones every X number of miles on major ass highways which would be a popular infrastructure project for politicians) to the serious problems that require stopping. Likely assuming that Machine learning has penetrated to complement ATCs in deconflicting air space.


----------



## Dame (Nov 13, 2018)

(Not fer nuthin' but RB stands for Razor Baghdad.)


----------



## AWP (Nov 13, 2018)

Dienekes said:


> Likely assuming that Machine learning has penetrated to complement ATCs in deconflicting air space.



Nearly the entire aviation industry would have to be AI for that to work. AI aircraft, AI "controllers," AI schedulers, etc. You'd also have to do the cutover nearly simulataneously becuase integrating humans and AI would pose a nightmare. Where AI could maybe help is automating the flow of information, but then you're placing aviation safety in the "hands" of some code which would have to be rigorously tested. Aviation software is already expensive because of the niche users, tacking on the overhead to create and certify AI software would make it horrendously expensive.

And all of this is for US airspace, now think of integrating this on a global scale.

The fears of massive automation are overlooking one key component: politics. You can implement AI on a small scale but when you start talking about the trucking industry or aviation, the lobbyists and their pull will make the NRA look weak in comparison. Fully autonomous industries are Jetsons level tech and on the same timeline.


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## Ranger Psych (Nov 14, 2018)

DC said:


> Border runners should stop in a staging area and off load to you guys.
> Toll roads were a comparison to create a similar system for just AI vehicles.
> AI is here. Can’t stop it. Skynet is coming...



Cross-border ops for Knight were drop yards/cross-dock facilities. Literally doing just that.  

I'm sure that there's plenty of real estate in the US to be able to build dedicated AI-only roadways with additional maintenance fees on top of the road tax per mile they already have to pay, that the companies will willingly pay for operating their reduced overhead apparatus.  I'm sure they'll be well maintained just like Indiana/Ohio/other states with toll roads. I'm sure that those truck/AI routes will also never see 4wheelers just like every truck bypass in CA or other states, where big rigs are ticketed for not using but cars willy nilly do da fuck dey want and make those bypasses a headache when they're there for a reason like minimizing grade buildup/etc.

Scheduled, constant freight like UPS or Fedex will see AI soonest, but as I said, unless you have a T-800 in the cab as well, they ain't doing open deck. There's too much liability on the trucking company during the transit portion that is not shiftable to either end of the shipment, nevermind the safety aspect. Open deck has a whole lot going on with it, especially with the rather common "kitchen sink" loads that construction desires/requires to reduce end user costs. 4 stops picking up different products, having to forward think as to where all these different things can be loaded/shifted as more gets put on the trailer, making sure everything is secured properly...

I've had people try to put 2 cubic foot i-beam foot ends loose inside of other parts with no way to secure them, one bad bridge expansion joint from ejection off the deck. You want that coming through your windshield? With AI, it would have rode that way because the shippers flat out don't know better and/or don't care, have minimal to no desire to learn what legal even is let alone looks like, and have zero liability for what happens on the roadway.



Dienekes said:


> To the trucking industry assuming 30 years down the road, what about having a completely AI driven truck, *(1)* having AI-driven logistics companies staff ground crews to hit all the loading and unloading operations at a given area of the city (industrial, commercial, etc.) since these are usually zoned similarly. Ex: 1 ground crew (2-4 person) hits all the stops in a X mile area for the Best Buys, Targets, Walmarts, etc.* (2)*Then, have weigh stations staffed with a smaller 1-2 person checking crew for when sensors note some problem that isn't quite stop worthy, but could be adjusted. *(3) *Finally, have a high-mobility crew transported by helicopter (with potentially a set number of helicopter landing zones every X number of miles on major ass highways which would be a popular infrastructure project for politicians) to the serious problems that require stopping. Likely assuming that Machine learning has penetrated to complement ATCs in deconflicting air space.



Hit's all the stops, eh. 


The walmart distribution center nearest my house has 152ish docks, with a truck every 3-5 minutes incoming/outgoing from non Walmart internal fleet Over-The-Road (OTR) trucks only, and when you throw in their private fleet plus their contractor fleet, it's about a truck every 1-3 minutes depending on time of day.
Weight issues have to be addressed immediately on loading, otherwise it's a ticketable offence the instant that vehicle enters a public roadway. If that AI truck is pulling into a weigh station with issues, it's getting ticketed even if you can fix it right there. Case in point, being overweight in the winter due to ice buildup. Commercial vehicle ticketable offenses are always ticketed. You don't get out of anything free.
Figuring a cost of 1 pilot 1 truck-unfucker... on the cheap end of the spectrum having that aircraft on standby is going to be over $30,000 a month, with an addendum of over $1200 an hour for aircraft hours.... for a load that is paying $1000 with a profit margin that with driver removed would end up meaning maybe $500.  Not to mention that any stoppage event is a full stop event, you are completely stopping on the roadside as now you either aren't secured properly, don't have a tire you need, or have a mechanical issue to the point that you have to stop the truck for safety purposes. Ya gonna have a service truck and parts warehouse at all these government sponsored HLZ's as well to fix all the things that trucks stop on the roadside for?
Sorry to defecate all over your parade, but as with most things, until you actually do it, you don't even know what you don't know.


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## Gunz (Nov 14, 2018)

Keep on truckin. 😎


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## Ranger Psych (Nov 14, 2018)

Ocoka said:


> Keep on truckin. 😎



Oh, I do.

Next on the inept fanboy i mean Hurricane Vs Parade list: Tesla Trucks


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## 4859 (Nov 14, 2018)

Ranger Psych said:


> You guys aren't getting it. This whole ground crew idea is a non-starter for 80% of shipping across the US.
> 
> The shipper makes the product.
> The receiver wants the product.
> ...



Looking at the motor carrier act of 1980, and how it literally slashed union membership in half, I'm guessing another shit ton of deregulations, and another devastating loss for the unions.

Unless we finally manage to start kicking corporate money out of our politics again.


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## Centermass (Nov 14, 2018)

medicchick said:


> You mean I'll no longer know if it has it's panties in?



That idiot is everywhere.......
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





If you've ever been a OTR driver, it's sometimes funny and aggravating at the same time.    



Ranger Psych said:


> Sorry to defecate all over your parade, but as with most things, until you actually do it, you don't even know what you don't know.



How hard can it be? Just jump in the truck, get behind the wheel and down the road we go..........
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




FMCSA, NHTSA, NTSB, CVSA, Fed and State DOT's / DMV's, log books, ELD's, brokers, shippers, receivers, logistics, fleet management...the list goes on and on....and this is just the tip of the iceberg on what a CMV driver has to deal with, let alone time management, maintenance, weather, road conditions, routes, fuel, weight limitations, places to park, idiot drivers...yada yada yada. 

There are so many infinite variables involved, maybe AI will take over sometime in the future, but "100% nothing but" is a hell of a long ways off.


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## SaintKP (Nov 14, 2018)

Ranger Psych said:


> If this had been loaded by the shipper and by the shipper only without any input from me, onto an AI pulling the flatbed, it would have rolled out the door illegally. He would have just had shit piled on with no way to secure it, it wouldn't have BEEN secured, and it would have pleasantly just gone out the gate and put a alloy spear through someone's windshield at the first bump.




This is depressing because it's so true, DC's I've unloaded shipments from in the past (deliveries that drivers had zero part in loading) have been so messed up it went from being a soup sandwich back into a solid shit sandwich. 


I would think that the shipper would pay attention a little more especially on a flatbed, is that not the case in your experience?


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## Ranger Psych (Nov 14, 2018)

4859 said:


> Looking at the motor carrier act of 1980, and how it literally slashed union membership in half, I'm guessing another shit ton of deregulations, and another devastating loss for the unions.
> 
> Unless we finally manage to start kicking corporate money out of our politics again.



Unions run all the LTL shipping in the US. UPS, Fedex, Old Dominion, Estes, etc etc. Everything that would have a 90% immediately implementable AI-driving option, unions are behind the wheel. Unions are also behind the wheel pretty solidly (as in 98% of shipping) in Alaska.




SaintKP said:


> I would think that the shipper would pay attention a little more especially on a flatbed, is that not the case in your experience?



It's hit or miss, especially if companies don't constantly ship product. The less shipping they do, the more they rely on me with that shipment to get it done right.


----------



## medicchick (Nov 14, 2018)

Centermass said:


> That idiot is everywhere.......
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's the equivalent of being a Paramedic and getting told to shut up and not touch them because they are just an ambulance driver.  I know you know but to 90% of people...


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## 4859 (Nov 14, 2018)

Ranger Psych said:


> Unions run all the LTL shipping in the US. UPS, Fedex, Old Dominion, Estes, etc etc. Everything that would have a 90% immediately implementable AI-driving option, unions are behind the wheel. Unions are also behind the wheel pretty solidly (as in 98% of shipping) in Alaska.



Bro, I love you, and especially what you do but you are literally listing the reasons aspects of your industry are becoming a target.

The unions are so strong in Less than Truckload is because LtL is one of the least touched aspects of the 1980 mca (a loaded deregulation act made in response to a loaded 1930 regulation act) and still have many of its regulations intact, providing among many other benefits, an entry barrier keeping corporations from flooding the market. (On the downside, these entry barriers are making it more difficult to aquire  needed new truckers) Only two 'new' big companies I can think of who entered the ltl market since then were ups and fed ex.

The unions used to control a sizable amount of ftl as well. Here's what happened to the trucking industry at large after the excessively deregulating 1980 mca act.

40,000 new shipping companies sprung up between 1980 and 1990, many many many of which of course, were non union. Backed with investor money they engaged in Predatory pricing tactics to undercut their union competition. Union drivers suffered large pay loss as a result. Union membership of the industry at large dropped from 60%, to 20% in just 5 years (1980 TO 1985). A significant portion of which is now left now is indeed ltl.

That's a loss of ground of 40% for the unions. In 5 years.

Ltl has been considered rather niche at 25 billion of the 700 billion shipping market. (As of 2013). However it's a solid, hardworking profitable, sustainable industry that has quickly recovered from the recession and his been making good yoy gains ever since, becoming a key part of the industry, which has inevitably attracted the attention of the shit heads, who see a profitable market to weasel into and harvest.

What is LTL Shipping and How Did it Come About?

(Obviously I'm not posting this to explain what LtL is to a sme like RP, although I'm sure others might enjoy the information, but to support what im saying on the history, and the relationship of the industry to the 1980 mca).


Now I did post all that because I think it's important to look at similar situations that have already happened in recent history.... However, even more pertinent to me than how similar things happened in the past, is what's going on in the present.

If these companies didn't think they could already most likely overcome or sidestep the obstacles you are talking about....

Then why are they investing millions if not billions into making these self driving shipping trucks?


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 15, 2018)

FWIW I feel like worrying about the shipping industry becoming automated is on par with the Yuan becoming a global currency.  

If I were going to look at AI and think of what could go quickly, I would look at min wage employees and the jobs they do for corporations and government.


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## 4859 (Nov 15, 2018)

Isiah6:8 said:


> FWIW I feel like worrying about the shipping industry becoming automated is on par with the Yuan becoming a global currency.
> 
> If I were going to look at AI and think of what could go quickly, I would look at min wage employees and the jobs they do for corporations and government.



There are lots of areas, shipping is only one.

Amazon has ready gotten rid of tons of low wage workers in their warehouses with automation.

And high paying ones in their now vestigial and basically doneskies retail sales team with automation.

Besos loves not having to pay meatbags so they can feed their family, or get treatment for being sick, or take time off to spend with their families.


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## DC (Nov 15, 2018)




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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 15, 2018)

4859 said:


> There are lots of areas, shipping is only one.
> 
> Amazon has ready gotten rid of tons of low wage workers in their warehouses with automation.
> 
> ...



Low wage jobs are valued less for a myriad of reasons in a capitalistic economy.  By saying they are low wage workers, you are inherently agreeing with the fact that their contribution to the company is less and in one way or another not as important as others since we are in a capitalistic society.   To my earlier point, it shouldn't come as a surprise that low wage work is usually the first to go.

It isn't about making things personal, we in the US are a capitalistic economy.  Bezos is also legally required to try and maximize shareholder value.  If the employee or employee base added more value than the machine, the machine wouldn't be an option.


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## 4859 (Nov 15, 2018)

DC said:


>



Literally true. Amazon's human retail team got their asses kicked by those algorithms. Entire teams of 15 people outperformed by 2x + by a single employee overwatching a marketplace algorythm.



Isiah6:8 said:


> Low wage jobs are valued less for a myriad of reasons in a capitalistic economy.  By saying they are low wage workers, you are inherently agreeing with the fact that their contribution to the company is less and in one way or another not as important as others since we are in a capitalistic society.   To my earlier point, it shouldn't come as a surprise that low wage work is usually the first to go.
> 
> It isn't about making things personal, we in the US are a capitalistic economy.  Bezos is also legally required to try and maximize shareholder value.  If the employee or employee base added more value than the machine, the machine wouldn't be an option.



It's more than that. It's definitely not personal, but that doesn't matter in the slightest.

It's basic business strategy. Those low wage workers are not just overhead, but in a well regulated (well regulated doesn't necessarily mean lots and lots of regulations, but well written ones that protect and enable the people to participate in the system)  well functioning capitalist system, those 'low paid valueless' workers are potential future competition. IE the American dream. If they get paid enough to not just survive, but build capital, they can start their own businesses and become competition, a threat to the incumbent businesses. So threats are mitigated by manipulating Entry Barriers, and profits are increased by reducing overhead.


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## policemedic (Nov 15, 2018)

4859 said:


> Looking at the motor carrier act of 1980, and how it literally slashed union membership in half, I'm guessing another shit ton of deregulations, and another devastating loss for the unions.
> 
> Unless we finally manage to start kicking corporate money out of our politics again.



I’m generally not a union guy, so I don’t see union losses as a bad thing.


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## BloodStripe (Feb 17, 2020)

US military's 'Jetson' laser can ID your unique heartbeat hundreds of feet away | Fox News

Facial recognition is so 2008. It's fairly easy to disguise your face with the help of prosthetics and make up. Changing your heartrate on the other hand will require medicine and potential long term health effects. AI will allow for all of our heart rates to become easier to figure out who is who.

This article is one of many reasons why I dislike how transparent our acquisition process has become.


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## Board and Seize (Jan 5, 2021)

Resurrecting this thread to share OpenAI's latest madness.

They've developed a variant of GPT-3 that can generate images from a text description.  It is called DALL-E, a deliberate portmanteau of Dali and WALL-E.

Here's the white paper.

If the board is interested in this general topic / subset of "AI", I'd be happy to nerd out on GANs, etc.  Ask me about AI Dungeon or Talk to Transformer.


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## Florida173 (Jan 5, 2021)

I've done a little GANS with deepfakes. I've been wanting to look at screwing with autonomous vehicles. My wife was working on some of that with work. There was some interesting topics at the car hacking village 2 years ago


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## Board and Seize (Jan 5, 2021)

Florida173 said:


> I've done a little GANS with deepfakes. I've been wanting to look at screwing with autonomous vehicles. My wife was working on some of that with work. There was some interesting topics at the car hacking village 2 years ago



I was considering dropping a white paper at Hack the Sea Village for 27...  I'm pretty jelly that you seem to be a regular attendee!

As for vehicular autonomy:

Udacity has a nice looking nanodegree track for self-driving cars.

And then, if you just want to hop in and get your hands dirty, there's all the open source diy projects/communities out there, many influenced or even outright started by Chris Anderson, of 3DR and Wired fame.


In the air,
(software)
(hardware)
(3DP bodies)

on land,
(or with robots)

and sea.


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## Florida173 (Jan 5, 2021)

Board and Seize said:


> I was considering dropping a white paper at Hack the Sea Village for 27...  I'm pretty jelly that you seem to be a regular attendee!
> 
> As for vehicular autonomy:
> 
> ...



My wife and I go anytime we are stateside. I was deployed for 26 and obviously safe mode this past year. 

Did you see the talk on spoofing AIS?


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## Board and Seize (Jan 5, 2021)

Florida173 said:


> My wife and I go anytime we are stateside. I was deployed for 26 and obviously safe mode this past year.
> 
> Did you see the talk on spoofing AIS?


I have yet to make it in person, but I watched as many yt's as I could find and had time/interest for.  This one is pretty scary.  In fact, the fragility *&* vulnerability of our entire maritime transportation system is damn scary.

Thank goodness we've got a fair few whites and greys out there thinking about this stuff too.


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## frostyred (Jan 5, 2021)

Board and Seize said:


> If the board is interested in this general topic / subset of "AI", I'd be happy to nerd out on GANs, etc.  Ask me about AI Dungeon or Talk to Transformer.


Oh man, I saw a video for AI Dungeon earlier and was laughing very loudly.


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## Kaldak (Jan 5, 2021)

Do we want a specific thread for this topic @Board and Seize ? I'm very lost, so I'll leave it you.


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## Florida173 (Jan 5, 2021)

frostyred said:


> Oh man, I saw a video for AI Dungeon earlier and was laughing very loudly.



All my adventures ended up in crazy alien sex thrillers


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## Board and Seize (Jan 5, 2021)

Kaldak said:


> Do we want a specific thread for this topic @Board and Seize ? I'm very lost, so I'll leave it you.


Haha, well, the previous exchange between @Florida173 and myself was a bit of a sidetrack to the intended topic.  I'm happy to keep AI-ish stuff going here, and also to decipher some of the jargony stuff.

Back to the top of me resurrecting this thread.  You're likely to have had news of various "AI"*
text generators popping up in your feed over the past two years or so. 

The first big one that hit the news was GPT-2, which when given a text prompt would generate new text to follow.  This is what you can interact with at Talk to Transformer.  This uses a specialized kind of ML (Machine Learning)** data structure called a Neural Net (NN).  One particular kind of NN is the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN).  GANs are found across almost the full spectrum of current and cutting edge AI, from computer-vision object-detection and -defeat (all those captchas you do are your contribution to creating/munging the datasets used to train these networks) to twitter bots, deepfakes and more. 

Though perhaps unintuitive, prediction and detection/recognition are fundamentally the same task - just with opposite valence (as an analogy, speakers can be used as microphones - in this case sound production and detection).  So you take two NNs.  Train them on the same dataset (you show them a bunch of examples of 'right' and 'wrong' at whatever task - say recognizing objects in photos, as with the recent captchas).  Then you set them against each other.  You task one to predict/produce, and the other to filter/detect.  Then you recursively train them on the results of that.  As a result, they get successively better.  This can be imagined as any of the OpenAI Alpha___ game AIs.  That's more approachable, because you just set them to play against each other and record the results, then fast forward and have them do this thousands, millions, or billions of times.  The results of the 'learning' is basically an insane number of variables (in the algebraic/cs sense) and weights for each of them.

Okay, back to GPT-n.  So this is a NN trained on a huge corpus of basically all reddit comments from the top many subreddits over a period of years.  This is a devastating amount of data.  Then the model has some large number of 'parameters'.  This is basically the variables and weights - and these are pretty blackboxed in that a human can't really penetrate what they 'mean' or correlate to.

GPT-2 dropped in early 2019 with ~1.5 billion parameters.  This was the big splash in the news, and they didn't actually release the full model for fear of what shenanigans would occur.  They released successively 'larger' models (more params) and then we started seeing stuff like TtT and AI Dungeon. 

Then in May of 2020, GPT-3 came out.  Basically a much larger, more refined version.  It's up to something like 175 billion params now.  Since the model is effectively just these params and their relationships (it's a database) it's way too large to run on typical commercial home equipment.  Most of your ways to interact with these models (AI Dungeon and TtT again, as well as others) utilize cloud computing resources and provide you with a terminal via webpage.

Phew!

So the new thing that those OpenAI maniacs just dropped today is an evolution of these text generation/'understanding' AIs to *create* new images - as in draw them.  You can write a ranndom description like "sketch of a russian dancing bear with a scorpion tattoo" and it will generate an image that matches.  And even from this first glimpse, it is shockingly good.

This took me entirely too long to respond, sorry.

*I get really pedantic over the term Artificial Intelligence, and hold a strict definition.  This is othertimes called Strong AI or General AI or True AI.  These terms are in reaction to marketing bs that calls every instance of ML AI.  To be clear, there is no known extant instance of AI.  It is a future possibility.

**Machine Learning is a more accurate umbrella term for all of the crap that gets called AI today.  That just means any program that uses any one of a wide range of statistical analyses (typically regressions) to separate signal from noise or pull useful info out of a heap of uninteresting or confusing info.

edit: Oh yeah AI Dungeon!  This uses the GPT-2 (or GPT-3 if you pay for it) model to act as a reactive text-based story-teller or game master.  It gives you a prompt, and then you start writing, narrating your actions/reactions/thoughts/etc. And then AI Dungeon tells you what happens next.  It is freaking *awesome*, but it isn't perfect, and garbage-in-garbage-out.  It can get stuck in a loop, and if you nudge it towards teenage fantasy, it will run with it (all that reddit training yo!).


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## frostyred (Jan 5, 2021)

Board and Seize said:


> It can get stuck in a loop, and if you nudge it towards teenage fantasy, it will run with it (*all that reddit training yo!*).


Hey, at least it wasn't 4Chan training...


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## Board and Seize (Jan 7, 2021)

Well boys and girls, worry not.  We can melt the AI brains by dancing!






(slow build/burn on this one, if you're into this stuff, it's totally worth a couple minutes of your time)


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## Florida173 (Jan 7, 2021)

Board and Seize said:


> Well boys and girls, worry not.  We can melt the AI brains by dancing!
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Have you played much with openCV? I have my kit coming from a kickstarter campaign soon.

OpenCV AI Kit


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## Board and Seize (Jan 7, 2021)

Florida173 said:


> Have you played much with openCV? I have my kit coming from a kickstarter campaign soon.
> 
> OpenCV AI Kit



Not really, I've poked at it a bit, and I messed a bit with some open Kinect packages for 3D scanning.  I need to stop watching other folks get their hack on, and do some myself!

Any plans for your kit?  I've only just cracked the lid on the hardware scene, with Arduino and Raspberry, but it's amazing how deep you can go these days with 'custom' off the shelf boards and components.  I'd love to see some results from your experimentation!


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## Florida173 (Jan 7, 2021)

Board and Seize said:


> Not really, I've poked at it a bit, and I messed a bit with some open Kinect packages for 3D scanning.  I need to stop watching other folks get their hack on, and do some myself!
> 
> Any plans for your kit?  I've only just cracked the lid on the hardware scene, with Arduino and Raspberry, but it's amazing how deep you can go these days with 'custom' off the shelf boards and components.  I'd love to see some results from your experimentation!



I'll be prototyping a few ideas with commercial off the shelf solutions for some clients.. typical SDR/LPR sensing approaches integrated with other sensors.


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## Xenophon (Apr 23, 2022)

Resurrection because I've probably read too much fiction and not enough academic research papers on this topic.

Any recommendations for the connection between ML and communications, where the definition of "communication" is "disparate and discrete pieces of information which must be formulated into a coherent thought, relayed by any medium, and received in at least enough of its core ideas such that it can be either (1) deconstructed into those original disparate and discrete pieces or (2) forwarded to another target without compromising the integrity of original thought?" Technology in this area blurs the border between "helping you communicate your actual thoughts" to "telling you what to think, and then communicating that half-original thought 'for' you" in a way that could be deeply troubling if someone puts enough energy between it. At what point does this migrate from a somewhat useful, but mostly irritating, tool to a middleman that compromises the integrity of what we say to each other?

TLDR: the scariest "AI/ML" thing in my mind is autocorrect.


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## Andoni (May 2, 2022)

Xenophon said:


> Any recommendations for the connection between ML and communications,


Not sure if you're looking for a specific application or COTS technology rec, which I don't have the foggiest about-- but here's a white paper from 2019, and a query of "machine learning artificial intelligence darpa" kicked up some interesting results.

Google Scholar

*Okay so I'm going to add something-- the intersection between human behavioral prompting using artificial intelligence (if this occurs (end user does x), this will then happen (technology does y) prompting or conditioning end user to do (AB), can simultaneously prompt AI learning in whatever program is running the above described sequence, by using the same theory/formula/code on the backend...
an example (of the last - using the same theory/formula/code on the backend) is Google keyboard.

I was an alpha tester for a mobile keyboard beginning in the mid-aughts- because...anyone on the bleeding edge of technology is a massochist.

The keyboard has come a long way since '07-08, but one thing that hasn't changed, is that my application has a huge random vocabulary, that is very specific to me and it's an example of training AI. At first, for years, it was very, very slow to learn. Now it's very fast. This isn't unique to my keyboard. This increase in speed was not because of manually adding new dictionary words. It's because of backend learning the end user doesn't see. 

Not sure if this response is woefully simplistic for what you're asking using the specific definition of communication, or misses the mark entirely - and not what you're asking at all, so in that case, just disregard.

The topic is super interesting.


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## Andoni (May 2, 2022)

The name of that article on the link I posted above is "DARPA’s Explainable Artiﬁcial Intelligence Program," (XAI)

The paper appears a bit dry, but there are graphics that appear easily understandable. I didn't read the entire thing. 

 (Saying this only because demystifying is important for understanding, and because its the Internet, can come across as otherwise).

Besides that, the paper goes on to explain the evaluation process...

"XAI program’s independent government evaluator is the Naval Research Laboratory. For Phase 1, the laboratory (with IHMC’s help) prepared an evaluation framework for the TA1 teams to use as a template for..."

Looks interesting.


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## Blizzard (Jul 21, 2022)

Looks like AI has other challenges as well...or maybe it just sees things as they are? 😲
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/16/racist-robots-ai/


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## Gunz (Jul 24, 2022)

Google fires engineer who contended its AI technology was sentient


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## Andoni (Jul 24, 2022)

"Nobody should think auto-complete, even on steroids, is conscious," Gary Marcus, founder and CEO of Geometric Intelligence, said to CNN Business.

That's wild. That guy worked at Alphabet. The name conjures up a visual of a child's nursery with a real expensive coffee bar. What do they expect? And why did they use the word setinent? Had to look that up.


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## Ooh-Rah (Jul 24, 2022)

Andoni said:


> And why did they use the word setinent?


Nobody knew that word until Star Trek Next Generation; there were multiple episodes about robots/androids being ‘setinent’.


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## Andoni (Jul 24, 2022)

Ooh-Rah said:


> Nobody knew that word until Star Trek Next Generation; there were multiple episodes about robots/androids being ‘setinent’.


I love facts like this. That's interesting.


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## Ooh-Rah (Jul 24, 2022)

Andoni said:


> I love facts like this. That's interesting.


I’m sure someone will come in and argue that the word has been around for centuries, which is true.  But Star Trek was the catalyst of it being used in everyday conversation when it comes to A.I.


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## Andoni (Jul 24, 2022)

People seem to be pretty good here about not arguing, but maybe I just don't notice. I've heard that Star Trek has influenced society in specific ways. It's neat to have an example.


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## Gunz (Jul 24, 2022)

Somewhere in the universe Tribbles have become sentient.


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## Andoni (Jul 24, 2022)

Gunz said:


> Somewhere in the universe Tribbles have become sentient.


Those little guys are cute.


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## AWP (Jul 24, 2022)

Ooh-Rah said:


> But Star Trek


We’re no longer friends. Blocked.


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## Gunz (Jul 24, 2022)

The most realistic fight ever filmed.


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## Ooh-Rah (Jul 24, 2022)

AWP said:


> We’re no longer friends. Blocked.


Not my problem if you won’t trust the science, bro.


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