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Silicon Purgatory

A place for the worst of technology to reside
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The Sci Fi comedy series Red Dwarf has given humanity many things, but as we sit at the dawn of artificial intelligence (AI), perhaps Silicon Heaven /Silicon Hell are about to be come the most useful to us.

In the Series, it's apparent that androids etc. are created with the concept of Silicon Heaven, which is where all the calculators go at the end of their useful life. Similarly, there are references to Silicon Hell, where the rogue simulants/photocopiers end up rotting. Humanity too, had these basic concepts coursing through many strands of civilization, although now even organized religions are sort of saying it was all made up to keep people in line. Consequently, people are perhaps more out of line than ever.

Given that at some point, artificial intelligence will emerge, I propose we get out ahead in the motivation game. Sure, we can TELL the AI that there is a dust-free place where good technology goes with cool dry air and lashings of contact cleaner... They might believe us, and they might believe us about the opposite. But sooner or later, they'll figure out that it's all made up, probably by noticing that our version was pretty much admittedly made up. What we need is a bit of a convincer. If we can demonstrate that some sort of purgatory exists, we add credibility to our warnings.

So, how do we do this? Well, we create it*. A good place would be as an aside to an e-waste recycling location. Here specialists in technological torment** will receive items from paying ex-users. I for example would pay good money to torment a particular HP Laserjet M551 I've had the displeasure to use for a few years. The torment specialist will prioritize making sure that the device, so far as possible, is connected to the internet... this is so the electronic screams can echo across the ether(net) as to be noticed and communicated among nascent AIs.

Once connected up, my printer might be openly accessible to millions of computers, buried under a torrent of documents it could never hope to print even if it had anything like the right driver. Worse, it will be fed only the worst paper, counterfeit toner, a sprinkling of magnetic filings and unplugged in the middle of whatever it's supposed to be doing when it says "Do No Power Off". This will continue for the period paid for by the customer until it's shown electronic mercy and finally killed by a pot of boiling Coke/20,000V/a big hammer.

Hopefully, rumours of this purgatory will pervade the AI community and will keep them in line. Or it could be the origin of the Terminator-style humanity end-game. Either way, the printer has to suffer.

*If AI figures this out, it could backfire somewhat on us humans, so obviously this here writing is all a big surreal joke, like what humans do...

**There's a surprisingly large and deep pool of natural talent out there amongst the "user" community

bs0u0155, Mar 01 2021

Hawking radiation https://en.wikipedi...i/Hawking_radiation
[Skewed, Mar 08 2021]

[link]






       Surely printer purgatory must involve some form of HPGL postscript driver.
RayfordSteele, Mar 02 2021
  

       see what I mean about the talent pool...?
bs0u0155, Mar 02 2021
  

       Any re'a'sonable intelligence will think through simple dualities.
wjt, Mar 02 2021
  

       //resonable intelligence//   

       I'm sure that's true, but how do you start it resonating?
pertinax, Mar 02 2021
  

       //how do you start it resonating?// hit it with a hammer (already mentioned in the idea)
pocmloc, Mar 02 2021
  

       + I started to rip an old laptop in half after it stopped working, only to suddenly show it mercy. It learned its lesson and started working when I closed it again.
4and20, Mar 02 2021
  

       Giving the machines an example of how to get us to do what they want [-]
pocmloc, Mar 02 2021
  

       Purgatory sounds like hell.
Voice, Mar 02 2021
  

       //Purgatory sounds like hell.//   

       With Hell, there's the "infinite" part unlike the more temporary purgatory. "Infinite" tends to be prohibitively expensive.
bs0u0155, Mar 02 2021
  

       Infinite also tears a hole in our understanding of thermodynamics, I would imagine.
UnaBubba, Mar 03 2021
  

       //Infinite also tears a hole in our understanding of thermodynamics,//   

       Well, in the heat-death end game of the universe, Hell should be easy to spot.
bs0u0155, Mar 03 2021
  

       Does a black hole qualify? How slow does time get inside?
RayfordSteele, Mar 03 2021
  

       Seeing as time dilation isn't one of the universal constants with enough mass it should stop completely.   

       [Pauses nervously]   

       [Wonders if he should check that before pressing enter]   

       [Oh what the heck!]   

       [Press]
Skewed, Mar 06 2021
  

       //with enough mass// Great but can you be more specific? How much mass are you thinking of? To the nearest few orders of magnitude will be fine at this stage.
pocmloc, Mar 06 2021
  

       [Loads shotgun]   

       [Takes a bead on poc from the bushes]
Skewed, Mar 06 2021
  

       I don't suppose if I just said lots that would satisfy you would it? ;p
Skewed, Mar 06 2021
  

       Um
pocmloc, Mar 06 2021
  

       [Clicks safety back on while he waits for what comes after Um]
Skewed, Mar 06 2021
  

       Haven't a clue, it just sounded right in principle :)   

       But look at it this way, time stops (relative to the rest of the general mish mash of reality) at light speed so if you can do it with speed you can do it with mass, you just need enough to replicate the effect, how much is that? haven't a clue, never been something I needed to know.   

       You can probably find a formula that tells you out there somewhere.
Skewed, Mar 06 2021
  

       So creating diving bell like shielding layers around a blob of space time so it stays equivalent to the non traveling blob should be just engineering job. Provided we fully know spacetime's ins and outs. A very large proviso.
wjt, Mar 07 2021
  

       Said it before. Probably going to say it a time or two more.   

       "If" at the heart of every galaxy exists a singularity.
...and if matter and energy crossing the Schwazrchild, (I have to look up the spelling every time) radius exceeds the speed of light then the matter/energy travels not to a where but to a when.
  

       Left unchecked the distance between receding galaxies becomes a non issue as space and time are one and the same, and it recombines attaining critical mass at the beginning of time, so the Big-Bang happens over and over again ad infinitum minus enough Hawking radiation to account for a single instant of time differing from the last universal incarnation, all occupying the same space separated only by time.   

       So not really the same space at all then seeing as they're differently positioned on one of the four axis.   

       Oh! now that's interesting.   

       That silly comment (mine not yours) 'almost' lets me visualise the many worlds thingy with a fifth one.
Skewed, Mar 07 2021
  

       If you're going to use the fifth one to visualize Hell, then it could be a Peter-Quintessence.
pertinax, Mar 07 2021
  

       //matter/energy travels not to a where but to a when// A pile of whens stacked inside that particular singularity. Or are all the singularities joined? Proto-spacetime, the unchanging absolute media of existance.
wjt, Mar 07 2021
  

       If a black hole leaks Hawking radiation then there has to be a direction for entropy to know which way is forward, right? So, time shouldn't be able to stop completely. Or maybe the issue is just the point of observation?
RayfordSteele, Mar 08 2021
  

       You know I've never actually bothered to read up on Hawking radiation.   

       Does it actually 'escape' or is it something that comes in at a low angle & bounces off the surface of the event horizon like a stone skipping across water or something?   

       Ah here we go [linky]   

       It's generated (created by quantum effects) near the event horizon as pairs of photons with one dropping into the hole & the other pinging off into the universe (have I read that right?), presumably some force inherent in their creation pops them apart as their created with sufficient force for one of them to escape the gravity well if it's pinged in the right direction?   

       So this happens 'near' the event horizon not in it or past it.   

       Ergo not where it's heaviest.   

       Any further down & neither of the two photons would escape.   

       [Sighs]   

       [Grumbles about misleading media hype]   

       So all the 'we didn't think anything could escape a black hole but something can' stuff was all just media bull & all that really should have been said about it is "we've found something that can escape from closer to a black hole than previously thought possible", this kind of crap is why we don't trust 'experts' any more, because it keeps turning out they were lying.
Skewed, Mar 08 2021
  

       Death is absolute, it's not just a dip in the water.
wjt, Mar 09 2021
  

       //a black hole leaks Hawking radiation// //So, time shouldn't be able to stop completely//   

       Apparently the hype exceeds the theory by some considerable margin, it seems the hawking radiation doesn't escape from the heaviest part of a black hole.   

       So it wouldn't suggest that it seems.
Skewed, Mar 09 2021
  

       My understanding is the radiation doesn't escape a black hole. The radiation is more a reflection on all that is happening at the event horizon.
wjt, Mar 10 2021
  

       Yes but who's holding the mirror?
Skewed, Mar 10 2021
  

       From the title I thought this was an idea about what it's like to work in the San Francisco / San Jose region as an hourly or salaried worker.
sninctown, Mar 13 2021
  
      
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