Will consoles die in 5 - 10 years?

[SYNACK]

I mean when I went to Australia a couple or more years ago they have totally phased out scart connectors and were already using phono type gold plated conenctors to connect projectors to dvd players and the like.

 

SCART never really took off for Australia and NZ it is now practically impossible to buy equipment with those connectors as almost all of the tvs and audio systems come with RGB inputs and on the higher end modles VGA and HDMI.

 

I think I am leaning towards believing in the Singularity on all this. Many of Raymond Kurzweil's predictions in 'The Age of Intelligent Machines' from 1990 have come true. I can see everything we use changing dramatically in a couple of decades - including consoles.

 

Which criteria are you using for the singularity, smart machines that can understand information and human requests or direct human to computer interface. I agree that things will change dramatically in either event and current ideas about the use of computers will become obsolete rapidly.

 

I'll try and digg out the stories but there was some news on the subject recently (as in this year) that IBM has made massive progress on the commercialisation of the process.

 

That is good news, I have seen lots of reports floating around about progress but nothing fully concrete when it comes to the actual implementation in the real world. The gates exist and people are working on them, some even claim to have made the switches but I have not seen compelling proof for any of the more hefty claims, it is always seems to be some startup somewhere that is demoing their latest product when it comes to this line of products. This kind of product would really benefit geographically isolated places like New Zealand, it would be nice to have a ping of less than 350ms to the UK.

Edited May 18, 2008 by SYNACK

[localzuk]

Which criteria are you using for the singularity, smart machines that can understand information and human requests or direct human to computer interface. I agree that things will change dramatically in either event and current ideas about the use of computers will become obsolete rapidly.

 

I think the advent of smart machines will cause the rest. ie. Proper AI. As soon as we tip the balance and have a machine that is as smart as a human, there is no reason why it won't improve itself so quickly as to make everything we currently think of in terms of tech, obsolete.

[SYNACK]

I think the advent of smart machines will cause the rest. ie. Proper AI. As soon as we tip the balance and have a machine that is as smart as a human, there is no reason why it won't improve itself so quickly as to make everything we currently think of in terms of tech, obsolete.

 

But will it be friendly? , What are your views on how this would effect its development?

 

If an AI with this kind of ability was built it would probably be restrained from developing or at least be built with such stringent controls that it would limit or stop its progress. This would all be done in the name of safety as the scare stories about this kind of thing are very well known, even screen written in some cases.

 

A little off topic I know but it is a valid question, what would win human curiosity or human paranoia?

 

 

 

With regards to the whole combining of devices and media streaming aspect of the consoles here is a write up on the Microsoft service that they are releasing through the XBOX 360s:

http://gizmodo.com/391338/microsoft-mediaroom-iptv-is-way-better-than-cable-or-satellite

Edited May 18, 2008 by SYNACK

[kesomir]

there is no reason why it won't improve itself so quickly as to make everything we currently think of in terms of tech, obsolete.

 

Including us

[localzuk]

But will it be friendly? , What are your views on how this would effect its development?

 

If an AI with this kind of ability was built it would probably be restrained from developing or at least be built with such stringent controls that it would limit or stop its progress. This would all be done in the name of safety as the scare stories about this kind of thing are very well known, even screen written in some cases.

 

A little off topic I know but it is a valid question, what would win human curiosity or human paranoia?

 

Human curiosity wins every time. If it didn't, we wouldn't have advanced this far already. Look at the luddite movement. They destroyed the machines as they thought they would ruin their livelihoods.

 

Yes, there is a distinct possibility for us to create a machine that could evolve and wipe us out, but I would guess that by the time that happens, the amount of tech we will be introducing into our bodies is going to make it difficult to differentiate between humans and machines in a cleanly defined way. Why would a machine wish to wipe out those who created it?

 

I look forward to the future, as I don't believe in any form of God. I look forward to us solving our world's problems.

[SYNACK]

I look forward to us solving our world's problems.

 

Quickly, someone check that the universe hasn't started collapsing in on itself, I, agree with localzuk :D