Malazan Empire: Azath Vitr (D'ivers - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Was deciding between these two microphones:




... and ended up getting...

QuickTidal, on 16 December 2024 - 03:00 PM, said:

Ah ha, you finally admit that Trump's invading Canada! (Trump incoming down south, worst of all situations?... But wait: No worst, there is none... The Leaden Echo & The Golden Echo (Gerard Hopkins) - Read by Dylan Thomas )

But if it's any consolation I'm rooting for you...

amphibian, on 15 December 2024 - 04:21 PM, said:

That's why you make sure there's also a human (either owner or professional robodogwalkeroperator) who can passively monitor the robodogwalker (or be alerted---along with authorities---in case of emergency) and take over its body if necessary. (And---since this is America---you make sure the robodogwalker is bulletproof... and has lots of guns.)

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Oh ffs... artificial neural networks now have many, many applications beyond that, and myriad studies have demonstrated substantial productivity boosts from using AI or assistive AI across many fields. Though perhaps most notably to assist programmers. (At the cost of some messy code that will need to be fixed later... perhaps by better AI.)

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Taking care of a living thing giving elderly people who otherwise might neglect to take of themselves a reason to? See for example this study:

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Granted, the examples I gave of extending that principle to robopets were purposefully silly, but the ways to make them possibly work should be pretty obvious... not simulated poop or food-in-bowl but something like having robodog whine if you don't walk it, or don't "take care of" it in other ways. Perhaps even just replacing the batteries or plugging it in to charge. As for the augmented reality---personally one of my issues with the robot cats I've examined is that they don't look realistic enough. Augmented reality could help fix that. And of course you don't need to wear a clunky headset, just glasses or goggles (that also hopefully won't increase the likelihood of falling... perhaps they could even monitor your balance for you and give you alerts if there are objects you might trip over or bump into).

JPK, on 15 December 2024 - 06:41 PM, said:

I don't understand... only one of those is in ancient Greek... no Latin made the cut? And no classical Chinese or Sanskrit?

Not even any classical Mayan?... madness!

Just kidding, enjoy... I once spent much of a year doing something very similar, but with audiobooks (not in ancient Greek or classical Chinese or other classical languages though, unfortunately...). If you like, you can test yourself on old copies of the "English literature" (with some world mixed in there) or Comparative Literature GREs at the end---one of my favorite parts of those tests is where they ask you to identify the author and the work. It's fun. (IMO...)

(As in "Classics Department" of "classical languages" (but almost always really only ancient Greek and Latin), corresponding "Classics" sections of some libraries and (fewer) bookstores, etc.)

To be clear, I do generally support providing elderly people with robot pets. But QuickTidal seemed to specifically want to give FIL a dog so that caring for that dog would motivate him to take care of himself. Granted, there are various ways that a robo-dog could be designed so that it needs to be taken care of, perhaps in a gamified way---put "food" in its bowl or it will get hungry and yowl pitiously at you, and eventually "die"? take it for a walk, or it will start leaving malodorous pellets of "poop" by your favorite chair?---teach it tricks?---train it to chase teenagers off your lawn, and battle other robot dogs?---but so long as he's not so far gone that he doesn't understand it's a robot, it seems unlikely to be quite as motivating as a living dog (if he can manage one).

Another possibility is using augmented reality to enhance the realism of the robo-dog. (And its poop...) With the robot providing the tactile element that would otherwise be lacking. (So long as the headset doesn't increase his risk of falling...)