Number 5. Breitbart. Waymo driverless cars create a traffic jam.
Well! We did not exactly see this one coming!
San Francisco, that pace-setting icon of progress, witnessed another new first: A traffic jam with no traffic.
At 4 AM one morning last week, a parking lot filled with self-driving electric Waymo vehicles, normally used to carry passengers, began a raucous commotion. Thirty Waymo cars began to mill around slowly in the lot. When they came close to each other, which was immediately, they did what their programming commanded: They honked at the oncoming car.
So did the oncoming car. Most cars in the lot got in the act and appeared to believe they were in a traffic jam. The most logical thing to do — and a programmed, driverless, electric car is NOTHING if not logical — was to honk at other cars in their way as each attempted to move… somewhere.
A local resident, awakened in the pre-dawn by the racket, caught it on his smart phone.
Nothing like building confidence in your brand.
A programmer for Waymo was overheard to say, “Wow, I sure didn’t think THAT would happen,” as he tapped his keyboard. Then he sat back with a smile and said, “Try it now!”
A firmware upgrade is planned soon, and this should not happen again. Very much.
Number 4. News Nation Now dot com. Wyoming mayoral candidate wants AI to run his city.
In our “Oh yeah? You think THAT was bad? Watch THIS!” department, a candidate for mayor of Cheyenne, population 65,000, has proposed that the city should be managed by artificial intelligence.
The candidate, one Victor Miller, human person, assures voters that he himself will attend to important functions of city government, such as attending ceremonies and parties, but the messy little details would be left to an AI bot. Those messy details include making decisions and either vetoing or signing proposed ordinances.
Because decision-making at the level of a mid-sized city requires assessing public needs and allocating resources, we can presume Mr. Miller the human also envisions THOSE roles for the AI helper.
Victor Miller has experimented with AI, and has named his alter ego VIC, for Virtual Integrated Citizen. Victor is the guy and VIC is the robot. Get it? Nice campaign approach!
In the 1940s, Isaac Asimov wrote a collection of short stories published as “I, Robot,” based on the notion that machines could be programmed to replace many human activities.
Asimov proposed 3 cardinal rules for robots, the so-called “Three Laws of Robotics:”
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.
Astute readers of the ANR, who, like your correspondent, wasted many years of their otherwise productive youth reading science fiction, will recall that Arthur C. Clarke built on this theme in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The HAL 9000 robot recognized Law #1 — don’t injure a human, or allow the human to be injured — but when he was responsible to take Dave and Frank and the others to Jupiter, he realized that trip WOULD cause them harm.
But Law #2 said he must obey the humans.
HAL could not obey both #1 and #2 because they were contradictory, which eventually drove him crazy. It led him to kill Frank and, when commanded to open the pod bay door, famously say, “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
So I will watch the Cheyenne mayoral race with bated breath. This is sure to end well.
I’m on City Council, and I earn 200 righteous bucks every month for making decisions. If I proposed our version of VIC, I wonder if I could still collect the money for basically just riding in the annual parade and throwing out candy?
Number 3. USA Today. 2.9 billion records, including Social Security numbers, stolen in data hack.
And while we’re on the subject of Things That Can Go Badly Wrong, the Los Angeles Times reports that your Social Security number is probably now for sale somewhere on the web. Along with your name and address and about anything else that can be obtained with your SS number.
An outfit named National Public Data apparently stores records for lots of people — like maybe a third of everyone on the planet — making them a ripe target for hackers. Who would ever have suspected that?
Hackers calling themselves USDoD, not to be confused with the US Department of Defense (or maybe it is EXACTLY the US Department of Defense… who can say?) stole the records in April this year. USDoD offered the records for sale on the dark web for $3.5 million, which seems like chump change for 2.9 billion records.
And by the way, if you do the arithmetic, that means your identity is for sale for a measly $858.
Other hackers, who also have access to this gargantuan pile of data, are offering it for free.
When the dark web is populated with 2.9 billion records, it isn’t exactly so dark anymore. Where will this end? Maybe we should hire the AI Mayor and let him sort it out.
Number 2. New Atlas dot com. $16,000 humanoid robot ready for mass production.
If you find all these technology nightmare stories upsetting, wait for this one.
Unitree Robots, a Chinese firm, has built a 4-foot-tall humanoid-ish robot they have named GI. It walks on two legs, has two arms with hands and fingers, and something that looks vaguely like a head. Videos available online show GI running, leaping and climbing stairs.
It can also dance, and shows the ability to avoid a human who tries to get it to trip and fall.
Gi is equipped with a high-tech camera, stereo speakers, and a built-in microphone, presumably to accept voice commands. The on-board battery should run for 2 hours. GI can travel under his own power at over 4 mph.
He costs $16,000. Unitree Robots has not yet announced a manufacturing schedule, but they claim he is ready for mass production. Get in line for yours.
There is no word yet on all the things he may be programmed to do once he is inside your home. Watching everything with his high-tech camera, listening to all your conversations, and with the ability to reproduce them all on his stereo speaker system.
Number 1. Food and Wine dot com. Doritos is releasing zero gravity chips.
And at last, an article about comfort food, to take my mind off the stress of all this techno stuff that will most certainly run amok.
One thing I really hate about being in orbit is when I crunch a Doritos chip, it crumbles. Then all the little pieces my mouth didn’t catch, and the little salty cheese dust, float away and get into the control panel, and it’s a mess to clean up.
But now, Doritos is ready for space travel. The new zero gravity Doritos are bite-sized, so you can pop the entire chip in your mouth at once, and they have somehow solved the cheese dust that’s always left over on your fingers.
Zero Gravity Doritos are scheduled to fly on SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission this month. Along with the new product offering, Doritos is making a half-million dollar donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
This should be interesting. You could ask the GI robot to, “Open the can of Doritos, Hal,” and with all of his AI-assisted knowledge about how bad Doritos are for your health, he might just say, “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
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It is nothing if not a Brave New World! Thanks for joining The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, August 23, 2024. Be on the lookout for leaping robots riding in driverless Waymo cars giving away Social Security numbers!
Don’t forget to share the episode with someone who feels depressed but doesn’t know why. This article may help them understand why they feel that way! Have a good weekend!
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