Coming Back Around

Conditions: Cold and Sunny

The Rising Tide

It seems to me more richly ironic that mankind's ultimate downfall would come at his own hand, rather than some kind of massive natural disaster. Mutating viruses that get out of control. Pollution levels spiking and poisoning the world's water supplies. Nuclear warfare, that kind of thing. So when the Future of Humanity Institute recently conducted a survey of their members about the possibility of Artificial Intelligence playing a part in the downfall of man, you might think they'd be skeptical. I mean, even the beginnings of A.I have not really been figured out yet, while we have several arsenals of Nukes just begging to be fired off. Any yet...

The most likely outcome is extremely bad. Eyeing it up it looks like a good outcome of any degree (extremely good + good) is less likely than a bad outcome of any degree (extremely bad + bad). Given that these experts think that the result is most likely very bad, why do we hear such little discussion about how to stop intelligent machines from being invented? In response to a question about what kind of organization was most likely to develop machine intelligence, the most probable was the military. This means we have something of a lever with which to try and slow them down. Should DARPA be shut down?

- modeledbehavior.com/

Well we all know how difficult it is to try and shut the military down when they have their eyes on a new "toy". The survey also asked what the time frame was, and basically it looks like we've got about 40 years until human-level machine intelligence will emerge. So be warned, the eggheads have spoken, and time is apparently running out.




Film Review: HoodWinked Too

I don't care what anyone says, if a film is good then it deserves to be seen regardless of what age group it aims at. I do care if a movie theater is filled with kids, who tend to be a tad more disruptive than your normal late night movie-watching audience, but at least kids aren't ashamed to laugh out loud at the jokes. So I'm not ashamed to say I saw the first Hoodwinked movie, and went to see the sequel as well. And it just goes to show how difficult it is to capture lightening in a bottle twice. The first Hoodwinked film was a delightfully fun re imagining of the Red Riding Hood story, whereby several wacky characters in an enchanted forest told their differing versions of the same event while figuring out who the mastermind behind a heinous crime was. This film works in a more simple fashion, whereby the characters are sent to San Francisco to stop a witch from creating magical cupcakes for evil masterminds that will give them super powers. Red and the Wolf are now partners, but the focus is on them struggling to work together and getting in each others way, each preferring to work alone. The moral of the story is how we all need help, and it's okay to ask for it.

Despite more screen time for Twitchy the beaver, and even a bit more for the crazy folk-singing goat, the film isn't as funny or wacky as the first film. It spends a lot more time with the bad guys and their constant screaming of how evil they are and what they're going to do. Red and Wolf proceed around the city asking questions, and then there's a final confrontation on a city street. I miss the enchanted forest setting, which felt a bit more special than San Francisco, despite how well the city was drawn.

Everyone's trying their best, but that crazy spark the first film had has been diluted down a bit in the sequel. There are some good laughs to be had, but with no real surprises to deliver, the film comes up a little flat. Two and a half cupcakes out of five.


- Peace out