u/genartist8

Imagine that, one day, we build robots with access to all of humanity's accumulated knowledge. We also design them to be completely self-sufficient: they can recharge themselves, repair themselves when damaged, and even manufacture new robots without human intervention.

At that point, they would no longer depend on humans for survival.

Do you think such a civilization of robots would eventually eliminate humanity? If so, why? If not, what would prevent that from happening?

I'm not asking whether this is technically feasible today. I'm more interested in the long-term philosophical and AI safety implications. Is conflict between humans and autonomous machines inevitable, or is that mostly a science fiction assumption?

I will start first.

Lie on the bed and think about how AI may take over the world

Becoming loyal servants maintaining our AI masters?

I want my 7yo child to learn martial art for self defence.

There are so many martial arts: Karate, Taekwondo, Judo, Aikido, Jujitsu, Brazilian Jitjitsu, Wushu, Muai Thai, MMA.

Personally I dont practice martial art. But have some "pre-conception" of which are the more aggressive ones from the YouTube clips that I watched.

For the martial art practitioners out there, which would be the "best" martial art for self defence and why.

More and more friends are vibe coding to create apps. They are telling me that there is no need to even know how to read codes to create a program, and they can use AI to correct the bugs that they found.

Read about fresh CS graduates finding hard to find jobs in the current market. Despite record revenue and profits, tech companies are laying off people.

Just thinking if coding would still be a useful skill now and in the future. Thinking of whether to let my child learn coding in school (which is still popular at the moment).

I have just reset a phone to try out altenative apps to Google Suite of product. After reset, I was prompted for Google Sign-In. Is the sign in for Google Play? Is there any alternative to the sign in?

I could not use Google Play or Samsung Store without login. I tried to find Aurora, as advised elsewhere. Found it using the pre-installed Chrome browser. But it is on APK. How do I get it installed? It is from the website: auroraoss.com. Is it safe?

The standard narrative is that declining birthrates are an economic crisis in future: fewer workers, collapsing pension systems, no one to care for the elderly. But most of this argument assumes a country can't adapt its systems to a shrinking population.

If retirees have substantial personal savings and the country invests in automation/robotics to cover labor gaps in caregiving, agriculture, and manufacturing, and immigration policy is used deliberately to backfill specific labor shortages, then a smaller population isn't automatically catastrophic. It might just mean a different economic structure: less GDP growth, but not necessarily lower quality of life per capita.

Japan and South Korea are already the test case for this. Both are leaning hard into robotics and automation specifically because of demographic decline. If that works, it suggests population decline is a transition problem to manage, not an existential threat.

What would change my mind: a structural reason savings + automation + selective immigration can't substitute for population growth, beyond "the current system wasn't designed for this" (since systems can be redesigned).

Edit: Insights from comments

1. Savings are future claims on resources
2. Pensions are large burdens on many countries due to the tax structure.
3. Immigration needs integration, without which will cause social problems.

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with Google Search. It feels like I'm seeing more AI-generated content and ads than relevant results.

The problem is that I'm heavily entrenched in Google:

Many Gmail accounts, Google Drive, Google Docs, shared family calendars, saved passwords, years of search history and bookmarks

I thought this is the best place to seek opinions.

For those who have tried to de-Google, what was your migration plan? What did you switch first? Which Google products were easiest and hardest to replace? Did you eventually leave completely or end up keeping some Google services?

Looking back, was it worth the effort?

Edit: Listing alternative products Google Suite -> Proton Suite (Email, Drive, Calendar, Pass, Doc, Sheet) Chrome -> Brave, DuckDuck Password Vault -> Bitwarden

Let me know if there are others that I should try

Recently, I read that US household net worth approaching 600% of GDP.

GDP is roughly what the economy produces in a year, while wealth is the accumulated value of assets, so I know they're not directly comparable. But historically, this ratio seems much lower.

What does a 600% wealth-to-GDP ratio actually tell us?

1. Are assets massively overvalued?

2. Does it imply future returns will be lower?

3. Are we expecting future growth will be so high, that it will bring down the ratio again?

4. Or is it a sign that modern economies (e.g. AI, Space, Quatum) naturally support higher asset values than in the past?

Curious to hear how investors interpret this metric and whether it's useful at all.

Do you think it's easier for scammers with the recent Paynow change to masked names?

Today is the first day that our Paynow has been changed from nickname to masked name. I dropped a few numbers, and was shocked to see the full names, with just 1-2 letters masked from each word.

It's not too difficult to guess the name, or at least the surname from the masked names. I can imagine more scammers will be calling the numbers and said "Mr Lim, I am from the bank...."

Do you think that we are creating a new problem (easier for scammers to address/find victims) while trying solve an old problem?

Just read about antisocial behaviours, characterized by manipulating, exploiting and violating the rights of others.

Looking at the current world order. Many top executives, some country leaders, and many billionaires, they tend to manipulate and exploit the market, create misleading news to benefit themselves.

Is the world ruled by sociopaths who abuse their positions to benefit themselves?