That’s the Victorian era for you. But for many earlier centuries women went out all the time to take care of various errands, so they must have had some form of acceptable public peeing, even if it’s not written down for us to study. Maybe they just gathered up their skirts and squatted behind a designated bush. Definitely sounds like the kind of thing Queen Victoria would have suppressed.

Of course not, you download to a bathroom.

What am I, a theologian?

Before the 1960s people just shat in the woods.

What’s breathtaking is how clueless education system administrators are failing at their jobs. They’ve been screwing up the system for a very long time, and now they have a whole new set of shiny objects to spend your money on.

Okay here are my estimates:

1: 100% but I don’t have a timeline. It’s not going as fast as the cultural hype presents it. We don’t even really understand human thinking yet, let alone how to make a computer do it. But I’m sure we’ll get there eventually.

2: Also 100%. AI doesn’t need to decide on its own to kill all humans, it could be assigned that goal by some maniac. The barrier to possessing sophisticated AI software is not nearly as high as the barrier to getting destructive nuclear weapons, biohazards, etc. Sooner or later I’m sure somebody who doesn’t think humanity should exist will try to unleash a malevolent AI.

3: At or near zero, and I only include “or near” because mistakes happen. Automated systems that could potentially destroy the human race should always include physical links to people - for example, the way actually launching a nuclear missile requires physical actions by human beings. But of course there’s always the incompetence factor - which could annihilate the human race without the help of AI.

You need not only propose a “plausible” scenario, you also need to present a reason to believe it will happen. It’s plausible that a rogue faction could infiltrate the military, gain access to launch codes and deliberately start WWIII. It’s plausible that a bio lab could create an organism that overcomes the human immune system and resists all medications. A nonzero chance of any of those happening isn’t proof that they’re inevitable, with or without AI.

I think you probably know I’m not saying judges aren’t democrats or liberals, I’m saying the actions of individual judges aren’t the actions of “The Democrats” or “The Libs” or any other group they belong to,they’re individual decisions. Meme creators just like to oversimplify the world.

The way an acquittal works is a judge or jury in a courtroom makes a decision. I can’t answer for flawed court decisions, but when they do happen it’s not “The Democrats” or “The Libs” making those rulings.

Or how about you don’t assign me tasks and I don’t do them? Cuz I don’t remember signing up for a class.

Or not.

I’ve seen tons of these comics. Can somebody asplain how “No, you can’t do that” is a compromise?

If it has decent internet service, just let me know who I have to kill!

I’m sarcastic because I would assign the same probability as a zombie apocalypse. At the nuts and bolts level I think they’re both technically flawed on a Hollywood fantasy level.

What does an AI apocalypse even look like to you? Computers launching nuclear missiles or what? Shutting down power grids?

Yes I know, the robot apocalypse people seem desperate to be afraid of is always just around the corner. Geoff Hinton, while a definite pioneer in AI, didn’t kick anything off, he was one of a large number of people working on it, and one of a small number predicting armageddon.

That conjures up an amusing picture of somebody breathlessly waiting for the analysis before they let themselves laugh at a meme, to be sure they’re not behaving unethically.

The trick is to judge things on their own merit and not on the hype around them.

That would work too.

Possible. I mean, electricity could actually be run by ghosts, but there’s no need for fanciful explanations when a mundane one is right there.

That’s what I thought until I discovered osmosis! Buy my new book!