We're going to have to get you on something healthy that also tastes good.  My BP went down from 190/110 to 130/85 when I cut out fast food/soda (I'll admit it was difficult- orange soda and fries were my weakness.)

I currently don't have blood pressure, weight, or liver problems so I should be good for a while longer.  (I say this as I eat french fries and drink a drink that I cannot mention here)

it'll eventually become too powerful and smart to control.

That is what I suspect will happen.

In the beginning they were rather confident that some version of Asimov's Three/Four Laws of Robotics would keep AI in check, but we're not so sure anymore

Those were written to point out the flaws in such ideas, even in his own stories he points out flaws.

will eventually come to resent us for it.

The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.

the more prone it will be to errors and "emotional" responses.

I don't think it will magically gain emotions just from becoming smarter.

We're going to have to get you on something healthy that also tastes good.  My BP went down from 190/110 to 130/85 when I cut out fast food/soda (I'll admit it was difficult- orange soda and fries were my weakness.)

I currently don't have blood pressure, weight, or liver problems so I should be good for a while longer.  (I say this as I eat french fries and drink a drink that I cannot mention here)

it'll eventually become too powerful and smart to control.

That is what I suspect will happen.

In the beginning they were rather confident that some version of Asimov's Three/Four Laws of Robotics would keep AI in check, but we're not so sure anymore

Those were written to point out the flaws in such ideas, even in his own stories he points out flaws.

will eventually come to resent us for it.

The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.

the more prone it will be to errors and "emotional" responses.

I don't think it will magically gain emotions just from becoming smarter.

French fries with ketchup?  Funny thing I've noticed is how single dimensional (read:salty and/or sweet) these artificial foods we eat seem to be.  And yet we still love them.  (I still eat fries from time to time but maybe once a month instead of every other day.)  I was served a rather amazing home cooked meal by my sister last weekend which had all different sorts of home-grown herbs and spices in it and the vast array of delicious taste in it cannot be described- except it had at least a dozen different dimensions of taste in it- it's like looking at a monochrome picture versus one that contains a kaleidoscope of color.
I remember some of the early robotics engineers and theorists were actually hopeful that they could incorporate some of these ideas in their creations, but I also clearly remember how R. Giskard found a way around the Laws quite logically, when he created his own Law and determined that radiating the entire surface of Earth was in humanity's best interest because it would cause the remainder of the population to colonize space and supersede the Spacers who were seeking to destroy them.  The ends justifying the means seems to be the philosophy employed by Giskard.
Ha, I like that "The AI does not love you and it does not hate you" we can substitute the word "Nature" for AI...... the difference being that nature only uses all our atoms for something else after we die......
Not necessarily smarter but from becoming more complex? I wonder why humans and some of the smarter animals developed emotions? Was it natural selection because emotions created bonds between individuals and those bonds increased the chances for survival?

Some research into elephants

  Elephants Have Surprising Level of
Self-UnderstandingApr 18, 2017
by News Staff / Source  | According to new research, Asian
elephants (Elephas maximus) are able to recognize
their own bodies as obstacles to success in problem-solving,
further strengthening evidence of their
intelligence.Once standing on the mat,
elephants were instructed to pick up the stick and give it
to the experimenter. Image credit: E.
Gilchrist.“Elephants are well regarded as
one of the most intelligent animals on the planet, but we
still need more empirical, scientific evidence to support
this belief,” said Rachel Dale, a Ph.D. student at the University of Veterinary Medicine in
Vienna, Austria, and first author of a paper reporting the results in the
journal Scientific Reports on April 12, 2017.“We know, for example, that they
are capable of thoughtful cooperation and empathy, and
are able to recognize themselves in a
mirror. These abilities are highly unusual in
animals and very rare indeed in non-primates. We wanted to
see if they also show body-awareness.”Self-awareness in both animals and
young children is usually tested using the ‘mirror
self-recognition test’ to see if they understand that the
reflection in front of them is actually their
own.Only a few species have so far
shown themselves capable of self-recognition — great apes, dolphins, magpies and elephants.Critics, however, have argued that
this test is limited in its ability to investigate complex
thoughts and understanding, and that it may be less useful
in testing animals who rely less on vision than other
species.One potential complement to the
mirror test as a measure of self-understanding may be a test
of ‘body-awareness.’This test looks at how individuals
may recognize their bodies as obstacles to success in a
problem-solving task.Such a task could demonstrate an
individual’s understanding of its body in relation to its
physical environment, which may be easier to define than the
distinction between oneself and another demonstrated through
success at the mirror test.To test for body-awareness in
Asian elephants, Dale and her colleague, University of
Cambridge researcher Dr. Josh Plotnik, devised a
new test of self-awareness.“Adapting a recent study done with children, we
designed a new body-awareness paradigm for testing an
animal’s understanding of its place in its environment,”
they explained.“In this task, Asian elephants
were required to step onto a mat and pick up a stick
attached to it by rope, and then pass the stick forward to
an experimenter.”“In order to do the latter, the
elephants had to see their body as an obstacle to success
and first remove their weight from the mat before attempting
to transfer the stick.”In one control arm of the test,
the stick was unattached to the mat, meaning the elephant
could pass the stick while standing on the mat.The scientists found that the
elephants stepped off the mat to pass the stick to the
experimenter significantly more often during the test than
during the control arm: elephants stepped off the mat an
average of around 42 out of 48 times during the test
compared to just three times on average during the
control.“This is a deceptively simple
test, but its implications are quite profound,” said Dr.
Plotnik, who is also an assistant professor of psychology
at Hunter College, City University of New
York and founder of conservation charity Think Elephants
International.“The elephants understood that
their bodies were getting in the way, so they stepped aside
to enable themselves to complete the task. In a similar
test, this is something that young children are unable to
understand until they are about two years
old.”“This implies that elephants may
be capable of recognizing themselves as separate from
objects or their environment. This means that they may have
a level of self-understanding, coupled with their passing of
the mirror test, which is quite rare in the animal
kingdom.”_____Rachel Dale & Joshua M.
Plotnik. 2017. Elephants know when their bodies are
obstacles to success in a novel transfer
task. Scientific Reports 7, article number: 46309;
doi: 10.1038/srep46309This article is based on text
provided by the University of Cambridge.   

I like that "The AI does not love you and it does not hate you" we can substitute the word "Nature" for AI...... the difference being that nature only uses all our atoms for something else after we die......
Not necessarily smarter but from becoming more complex? I wonder why humans and some of the smarter animals developed emotions? Was it natural selection because emotions created bonds between individuals and those bonds increased the chances for survival?

These videos cover it pretty well
[youtube]tcdVC4e6EV4[/youtube]
[youtube]4l7Is6vOAOA[/youtube]
[youtube]3TYT1QfdfsM[/youtube]

Nice videos!  Doc, some new studies came out yesterday about artificial sweeteners in diet soda, showing that they increase the risk of strokes by 3x over 10 years and dementia over sugary "normal" sodas.  Now, neither is good for you, but looks like the diet stuff could actually be worse.  It reminds me of what we found out about margarine vs butter.

showing that they increase the risk of strokes by 3x over 10 years and dementia over sugary "normal" sodas.

There are decades old studies showing that many artificial sweeteners have detrimental health effects, but they tend to be iffy on the evidence supporting their claims.  I do recall aspartame in high dosages causing lesions in the brains of mice, but the problem with those studies was the dosages were incredibly high.  Anything in too high of a quantity is not going to be good, human bodies are pretty bad like that.  I avoid artificial sweeteners as much as possible, it is well known they can cause digestive distress and headaches plus all kinds of other health problems. 

Fructose is one thing people should be worried about and you can't avoid it since it is in everything.  The body does not process fructose in the same way it processes glucose, fructose is processed in the liver and leads to hypertriglyceridemia and fatty liver disease.  HFCS is too cheap and as safe as sugar in normal quantities found in nature, but not in the refined methods in use today.  There isn't enough evidence however to support the claims that HFCS is behind the current health crisis of obesity, fatty liver disease, heart disease, and rising cancer rates but there certainly are hints that it could be a contributing factor.  

If you see "sucrose" on the label that still means fructose, sucrose is both glucose and fructose so you aren't doing yourself any favors by substituting it.

I think our entire food industry is in dire need of a reform.

[hr]

I had to look through a ton of sites to find the source for what you mentioned
http://stroke.ahajournals.org/content/e ... 116.016027

It is interesting and I hope others can verify the results.

I do too.  I spent a few hours reading stuff and posted some of it in the Science News forum but left this topic here specifically for you to see it.  There is also a Scientific American piece on artificial sweeteners like Splenda and Aspartame affecting the gut biome.  

Here is the study mentioned in the news the other night as well as some info about how the soft drink industry  and sugar industry influences research with its money.  Personally, I drink soda maybe once a month if that but I find that like with fast food, some people get addicted to it.  Coffee and tea are much better- I actually prefer Green Tea above all else (besides filtered water of course- I put a filter on my incoming water both for cooking and drinking because it has a high metal content and pesticides were found in it.)

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-ca ... ds-n749051

Diet Sodas Raise Risk of Dementia and Stroke, Study Finds

by MAGGIE FOX

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People who drink diet sodas daily have three times the risk of stroke and dementia compared to people who rarely drink them, researchers reported Thursday.

It's yet another piece of evidence that diet drinks are not a healthy alternative to sugary drinks, and suggests that people need to limit both, doctors said.

Play Diet Sodas Raise Risk of Dementia and Stroke, Study Finds Facebook Twitter Embed

Diet Sodas Raise Risk of Dementia and Stroke, Study Finds 1:38

While the findings do not prove that diet drinks damage brains, they support other studies that show people who drink them frequently tend to have poorer health.

The researchers, led by Matthew Pase of the Boston University School of Medicine and colleagues, studied more than 4,000 people for their report, published in the journal Stroke.

"We found that those people who were consuming diet soda on a daily basis were three times as likely to develop both stroke and dementia within the next 10 years as compared to those who did not consume diet soda," Pase told NBC News.

“Both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drinks may be hard on the brain.”

"Our study provides further evidence to link consumption of artificially sweetened beverages with the risk of stroke," the team wrote.

"To our knowledge, our study is the first to report an association between daily intake of artificially sweetened soft drink and an increased risk of both all-cause dementia and dementia because of Alzheimer's disease."

Related: WHO Urges Governments to Tax Sugary Drinks

The team did not ask people which artificial sweetener they used. Some of those in the diet drinks were likely saccharin, acesulfame, aspartame, neotame, or sucralose, the researchers said.

To their surprise, the team did not find the same risk for sugar-sweetened beverages. But they found other troubling signs. "In our first study we found that those who more frequently consume sugary beverages such as fruit juices and sodas had greater evidence of accelerated brain aging such as overall smaller brain volumes, they had poorer memory function and they also had smaller hippocampus, which is an area of the brain important for memory consolidation," Pase said.

Image: New York City Board Of Health Approves Bloomberg's Over Sized Sugary Drink Ban

Mario Tama / Getty Images

And other experts pointed out that sugary drinks are a major cause of obesity, diabetes, stroke and other ills.

"Both sugar-sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drinks may be hard on the brain," Dr. Ralph Sacco, chairman of the neurology department at the University of Miami, and colleagues wrote in a commentary in the same journal.

Sacco, a former president of the American Heart Association, led another study that found women who drank diet sodas had a higher risk of stroke, heart attack and other types of heart death.

"Now with the growing number of studies that suggest a relationship between artificial sweetened beverages and vascular risk, I would say reach for a bottle of water before you reach for your artificial sweetened beverages," Sacco told NBC News.

Related: Drinking Diet Soda May Just Make You Want to Eat More

The researchers accounted for age, sex, education, overall how many calories people ate, diet quality, physical activity, and smoking. But they note that there may be others things that are also different about people who drink diet sodas.

Many may have switched to diet sodas because they had a health scare, for instance, including obesity and diabetes — both of which can raise the risk of stroke and dementia.

And Americans have been encouraged to switch to diet drinks.

"Your intake of soda and diet soda and other beverages is part of a greater pattern. There is no simple relationship between what you are eating and drinking," said Keith Fargo, director of scientific programs for the Alzheimer's Association.

Related: Could Diet Drinks Make Your Baby Fat?

Pase noted that the risks are still low and people who love their daily fix of diet soda do not need to panic.

"Even if someone is three times as likely to develop stroke or dementia, it is by no means a certain fate," Pase said. "In our study, three percent of the people had a new stroke and five percent developed dementia, so we're still talking about a small number of people developing either stroke or dementia."

And Fargo said the study does not point to any specific mechanism for how a diet drink might damage the brain. It's better for people to just do what the evidence shows will improve their health overall anyway — exercise and eat plenty of fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

"There clearly is a relationship between your heart health and your brain health," Fargo told NBC News.

“I would say reach for a bottle of water before you reach for your artificial sweetened beverages.”

"You have got to pay close attention and be diligent about dietary habits, exercise habits, controlling your blood pressure. It is not going to be simple fix like 'get rid of the diet soda,'" Fargo added. His group has recommendations online at alz.org/10ways.

Research has long shown that artificially sweetened drinks are not health drinks. While they may help people avoid more dangerous sugary sodas, studies show they don't help people lose weight.

The American Beverage Association, the lobbying group for the soda industry, said its products are safe. "The Alzheimer's Association points out that the greatest risk factors for Alzheimer's are increasing age, family history of Alzheimer's, and genetics — not sugar intake, from any source," it said in a statement emailed to NBC.

Related: Soda Company Donations Influenced Health Research

But Sacco said he'd stopped drinking diet drinks.

"I know that when we first focused our data on artificial sweetened beverages and stroke risk few years back, I stopped drinking them," he said.

"We're not suggesting to go back to sugar sweetened beverages," he added.

So what can people drink?

Water is always a good option, doctors agree. And of course, there's coffee. Studies show that people who drink regular, moderate amounts of coffee are less likely to die from a range of diseases, from diabetes to heart disease.

Research has long shown that artificially sweetened drinks are not health drinks. While they may help people avoid more dangerous sugary sodas, studies showthey don't help people lose weight.

The American Beverage Association, the lobbying group for the soda industry, said its products are safe. "The Alzheimer's Association points out that the greatest risk factors for Alzheimer's are increasing age, family history of Alzheimer's, and genetics — not sugar intake, from any source," it said in a statement emailed to NBC.

Related: Soda Company Donations Influenced Health Research

But Sacco said he'd stopped drinking diet drinks.

"I know that when we first focused our data on artificial sweetened beverages and stroke risk few years back, I stopped drinking them," he said.

"We're not suggesting to go back to sugar sweetened beverages," he added.

So what can people drink?

Water is always a good option, doctors agree. And of course, there's coffee. Studies show that people who drink regular, moderate amounts of coffee are less likely to die from a range of diseases, from diabetes to heart disease

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-ne ... ps-n663866

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-ne ... ds-n646836

The soda industry has exerted a not-so-subtle influence on the health industry, donating to nearly 100 groups ranging from the American Diabetes Association to Save the Children, researchers reported Monday.

The researchers urged health organizations to just say no to money from the soda lobby — saying it looks bad at best, and at worst can exert strong pressure on groups that might otherwise act to reduce unhealthy sugar consumption.

"From 2011 to 2015, the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo were found to sponsor a total of 96 national health organizations, including many medical and public health institutions whose specific missions include fighting the obesity epidemic," Daniel Aaron and Dr. Michael Siegel of Boston University wrote in their report, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

"During the study period, these two soda companies lobbied against 29 public health bills intended to reduce soda consumption or improve nutrition."

I also like truvia- seems to have less side effects associated with it.  Sugar from natural sources like bananas seems to have less side effects because the banana has B-vitamins which help metabolize it.  HFCS is way worse.

showing that they increase the risk of strokes by 3x over 10 years and dementia over sugary "normal" sodas.

There are decades old studies showing that many artificial sweeteners have detrimental health effects, but they tend to be iffy on the evidence supporting their claims.  I do recall aspartame in high dosages causing lesions in the brains of mice, but the problem with those studies was the dosages were incredibly high.  Anything in too high of a quantity is not going to be good, human bodies are pretty bad like that.  I avoid artificial sweeteners as much as possible, it is well known they can cause digestive distress and headaches plus all kinds of other health problems. 

Fructose is one thing people should be worried about and you can't avoid it since it is in everything.  The body does not process fructose in the same way it processes glucose, fructose is processed in the liver and leads to hypertriglyceridemia and fatty liver disease.  HFCS is too cheap and as safe as sugar in normal quantities found in nature, but not in the refined methods in use today.  There isn't enough evidence however to support the claims that HFCS is behind the current health crisis of obesity, fatty liver disease, heart disease, and rising cancer rates but there certainly are hints that it could be a contributing factor.  

If you see "sucrose" on the label that still means fructose, sucrose is both glucose and fructose so you aren't doing yourself any favors by substituting it.

I think our entire food industry is in dire need of a reform.

[hr]

I had to look through a ton of sites to find the source for what you mentioned
http://stroke.ahajournals.org/content/e ... 116.016027

It is interesting and I hope others can verify the results.

Yep we need reform- and this includes factory farming and the overusage of hormones and antibiotics on farm animals.  The onset of puberty is even occurring earlier now.

A-L-E-X, please cut down on all the multi-posts.  Also when sharing an article, please don't copy/paste the whole thing.  It's better to just link to it along with some of your own words.

A-L-E-X, please cut down on all the multi-posts.  Also when sharing an article, please don't copy/paste the whole thing.  It's better to just link to it along with some of your own words.

Thanks, I've started to do that with some of the more recent posts  Still haven't mastered how to quote several people in the same post though.  The quotes after the first one don't seem to appear.

I mentioned the above studies to someone in the field and they sent me this in email

"For instance, rats fed artificial sweeteners in concert with a "Westernized" diet experience a host of metabolic derangements; the hypoglycemia, for e.g., increases caloric intake and impairs weight control. Apart from these physiologic changes, alterations in brain histopathology have also been observed in rats fed aspartame."

Best to only copy a chunk of the article anyway, a few sites have had copyright complaints from media outlets for copying the entire article.

This is my future world.
We are currently living in the Information Age. The next ages of humanity that I predict are as follows

1. The Post-Information Age

-not too far in the future. Maybe 20 years

2.The Fusion Age
-the discovery of sustainable fusion power ushers in a new era of unlimited energy and end of fossil fuels

3. Nano Age
-Nanotechnology truly takes off and permeates every aspect of life

4. Interstellar Age
-With the discovery of Faster-than-light travel, humans can now explore the galaxy

5. Intergalactic Age
- After learning to transverse the void between galaxies, humanity explores the universe

6. Post-Intergalactic Age
-Humanity begins to settle and inhabit all parts of the universe.

7. Energy Age
-Humanity learns how to convert themselves to pure energy and exist in their own designer universe

7+ The Big Crunch
-The universe ends and a new one is born in its place

This is how I envision the future. Except for 7+ The Big Crunch Era, can you help me think of 10 future inventions/technologies for each era? Thanks

With the discovery of Faster-than-light travel, humans can now explore the galaxy

That would be nice but don't keep your hopes up.

7+ The Big Crunch
-The universe ends and a new one is born in its place

The Big Crunch is inconsistent with available data.  According to the best model we have, accelerating expansion will take over as the cosmological constant dominates the universe's energy density.

-Nanotechnology truly takes off and permeates every aspect of life

We're fairly close to this point and I think this is where the story of humanity ends.

That would be nice but don't keep your hopes up.

My hopes for warp drives are always high, but the realist in me is perpetually depressed

Watsisname, I think the notion of the universe restarting or a new universe coming into being is likely but the method through which that happens is different.

Watsisname, I think the notion of the universe restarting or a new universe coming into being is likely but the method through which that happens is different.

Philosophically I like the idea of a universe that cycles or rebirths or is a member of a multitude of others, but I try to remind myself that reality is not obligated to behave the way we want.  

A cyclic universe with the Big Crunch is a classic idea from before we understood the cosmological constant, but there are a lot of other working hypotheses now that -- while they don't necessarily save us from the ultimate catastrophe of heat death -- at least allow there to be more to the universe than that.

-- while they don't necessarily save us from the ultimate catastrophe of heat death --

While heat death still occurs there are ideas out there that support the notion of a new universe being born when entropy reaches it max.

Spontaneous Inflation and the Origin of the Arrow of Time

We suggest that spontaneous eternal inflation can provide a natural explanation for the thermodynamic arrow of time, and discuss the underlying assumptions and consequences of this view. In the absence of inflation, we argue that systems coupled to gravity usually evolve asymptotically to the vacuum, which is the only natural state in a thermodynamic sense. In the presence of a small positive vacuum energy and an appropriate inflaton field, the de Sitter vacuum is unstable to the spontaneous onset of inflation at a higher energy scale. Starting from de Sitter, inflation can increase the total entropy of the universe without bound, creating universes similar to ours in the process. An important consequence of this picture is that inflation occurs asymptotically both forwards and backwards in time, implying a universe that is (statistically) time-symmetric on ultra-large scales.

full paper
https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0410270.pdf