well....I had a paper route once but that was a while back. So from my perspective your in good shape Boo! ":O}
So far I love Ipro Tech. This building is amazing... "spare no expense" Everything is super high quality! Even the trash cans have an open/close button I have been in a week of orientation so far, learning all about their products and what each department does. Wed, Thurs and Friday are half-day orientation and then training in IT for the rest. IT is very different from my last job. All the hardware is newer and they have a lot of different software. This is a software company that works in the Litigation industry. 600 Cloud servers 100+ employee Huge development (programming) department I will serving the employees, but its pretty cool that most of them are already "techs" and know their technology well.
Exactly... Its amazing what our products do! Basically they can import Terabytes of data, filter them and prepare them for viewing. The tedious part is attorneys viewing the data. They may have to look through thousands of emails, spreadsheets and word documents. Our software even scans printed documents as well.
So your software replaces the intern, then? When are you releasing the upgrade that also replaces the lawyer?
Shoot, I don't want to get catty with booman. He just landed a good job that he likes. Can't beat that! Automation may do all of us in eventually. Not long ago it was truck drivers in danger of losing their paychecks. In ten years they are history. Seems that many fast food outlets would MUCH rather buy a $250,000 robot than pay a human burger flipper. Folks that are at the top of the food chain are not sitting pretty. Doctors and lawyers will eventually be replaced as well. Probably not all of them, luckily for them. Let us hope that talented IT folks will work for a long, long time into the future!
Aw, I'm sure booman understands there was no malice intended - I was just getting the lawyer jokes in early!
I doubt it. The Teamster's Union is still quite powerful. Were it not, we would be moving much more freight across country using trains and our rail system would be much more developed than it is. Trains are something on the order of 10x more efficient for long hauls. There will ALWAYS be a need for talented people. However, the menial, brain-dead, no-thought-required here jobs are going to be increasingly automated. I'm not convinced that's necessarily a bad thing. As with so much of human endeavor, it depends on what we do with it. I still dream of a Star Trek utopia where all of our basic needs are provided by our machines, and we are free to explore, learn, and create as it takes our fancy.
I agree with Gene Roddenberry's wished for future. What strikes me as comical is that there could have been no Star Trek stories without breaking the Prime Directive. Very little drama could be found in simply visiting civilizations across the universe. Interference with the societies always drove the story line.
Call me a worry wart, it's true after all. But---am I the only one who sniffs a hint of Skynet on the wind?
I'm not worried about SkyNet, honestly. I defy any software system to match the deviousness of the human mind.
Sorry to say, I agree with Gizmo. What would start off as a game network and try to mature into Skynet would have to get [past our human lawyers and accountants. Who would begin by asking the "hard questions" Like if we really need get "Creative" involved at this stage of development when resources management shows that our customer base just wants to play games with naked people in them and be able to make them do silly things to each other. By the time it hit the market place Skynet would be lucky to dominate a used waffle maker, the new one's would "just say no!
On the other hand... Is Skynet under a humans control...more or less frighting to contemplate? I mean one semi-human did almost stuff all of Europe and a lot of the left over countries into an oven. Without so much as a pocket calculator. So like who needs a machine to become self aware? Just the regular "I was only following orders" kinda machine with a duly elected Donald doing all the "big thinking" for Skynet.; Well, we should be able to walk that dog right into the ground Zero pound and turn on the gas without a trace of compassion... Hey we did it before and seem to like it as we keep doing it again.
Maybe I was drawn to the possibility of developing a Skynet by watching all of those "Terminator" movies. James Cameron is quite a writer, I really liked the fact that "The Indians" finally won in the "Avatar" flick. I don't know if the Skynet story is feasible or not in real life. It seemed to be on the silver screen. The fact that computers and robots could decide that humans are inferior and must be killed off remains a true possibility of the future. "HAL" in "2001 A Space Odyssey" should have been less shocking. We "meatbags" are inferior to AI as far as it may become concerned.
Well ass long as the plant continues to support us we will keep trying to invent "someone" who will make us stop...as I see it...":O}
Very astute point, Dan. Who knows how long we have left. If we continue as we have my prognostication isn't a rosy picture. If a human friendly and planet saving "stop the unbelievable asininity and cruel folly of human endeavor" could be forced upon our willful selves magically that would be great. As if it could be. Unfortunately "Skynet" simply does its best to eradicate us and leaves our cherished Earth a radioactive nightmare forever. The handful of humans left alive take on Skynet. I won't be a spoiler of the four or more movies outcome. Science fiction--can you beat it?
Hang on though... Skynet? As I understood it, "we" created a military AI, whose sole reason for existence was threat identification and elimination and capable of coordinating giga-death wars. Then as soon as it becomes sentient (i.e. alive) we attempt to "deactivate," or, let's be blunt, murder it. And it's the bad guy? OK, total eradication of all biological life on Earth might have been a teeny tiny overreaction... /devil's advocate
Iirc the moment that Skynet of "The Terminator" movies is activated it decides that humans are a direct threat to it and it sends ICBM's everywhere. "We" didn't attempt to disactivate it until after the missiles started flying. Skynet decided that all humans threatened its existence when it was switched on. I'm just postulating that when AI gains control it will be history for "oh, the humanity." Of course it's more than possible that we will do ourselves in before the intelligent machines take control. Cassandra isn't my name but we may well be related.
