| EVERYTHING IS BETTER IN THE FUTURE, ROBOT LAWS, CHATBOTS, EVERYTHING IS WORSE IN THE FUTURE Live Long and Prosper OK, I couldn't resist that title, certainly not this week. But there's a lot of reason to believe that we can expect the famous Vulcan benediction to come true. Today's RealClearFuture update links to two interesting angles on this.
The first is that all major diseases are in decline in wealthy societies. The really interesting part is that nobody knows exactly why. "Scientists marvel at this good news, a medical mystery of the best sort and one that is often overlooked as advocacy groups emphasize the toll of diseases and the need for more funds. Still, many are puzzled. 'It is really easy to come up with interesting, compelling explanations,' said Dr. David S. Jones, a Harvard historian of medicine. 'The challenge is to figure out which of those interesting and compelling hypotheses might be correct.'" Then Peter Diamandis argues that we are about to see a steep drop in the cost of living. The interesting part of his argument is the concept of "demonetization." "To me, 'demonetization' means the ability of technology to take a product or service that was previously expensive and make it substantially cheaper or potentially free (in the extreme boundary condition). It means removing money from the equation. Consider Photography: In the Kodak years, photography was expensive. You paid for the camera, for the film, for developing the film, and so on. Today, during the megapixel era, the camera in your phone is free--no film, no developing. Completely demonetized." Well, completely demonetized if you don't count the $700 iPhone it's mounted in. And that's where this intriguing idea goes wrong (and encourages Diamandis to toy with "technological socialism"). History shows that when human beings have reduced the cost of their "basic necessities," they immediately increase the standards for what they consider "basic" and "necessary." So it's not likely that we will be content to have all the things we need without working. It's more likely that we will continue to work in order to enjoy more and better things. Which sounds like a pretty good deal to me. --- The Long Robot Arm of the Law Self-driving cars have so far developed in a largely unregulated environment, which probably explains how they were able to develop at all. But they're already sallying forth onto the regulated (and litigated) spaces of our roads and highways. So we're starting to get an idea of what laws for self-driving cars will look like. "The German government is reportedly working hard on legislation that will apply new legal standards to self-driving cars in an effort to ascribe liability and set guidelines for investigating inevitable future crashes. According to German newspaper Handelsblatt, that includes a requirement that drivers maintain a 'minimum of attention'--defined as remaining in front of a steering wheel at all times and being able to immediately take control of the wheel 'at the request of the automated system.' The law would also require the installation of a black box." Which makes it sound as if the mature self-driving auto industry is going to look less like a free-wheeling Silicon Valley start-up--sorry, Tesla--and a little more like the airline industry. --- There's plenty more at our main page, including some bad news for chatbots.
Tougher Turing Test Shows Chatbots' Stupidity
Bursting the Chatbot Bubble
Training Computers to Find Future Criminals
The History (and Future) of X-Ray Specs
4 Roadblocks to Precision Medicine Check it all out. --- Everything Is Worse in the (Hollywood) Future The future may be likely to bring us longevity and prosperity, but you would never know it from what's on TV and in the movies. Specifically, here's an overview of what Hollywood thinks about artificial intelligence. Spoiler alert: it generally doesn't end well. The surprise to me is that the most benevolent Hollywood version of AI is probably in Star Wars, which gives us a set of lovable robot sidekicks. --Rob Tracinski
Editor, RealClearFuture Follow @RealClearFuture on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. Send comments, recommendations, and submissions to rob@realclearfuture.com. | 
