Le 10/01/2013 09:48, scott nous fit lire :
>> Lots of people are doing interesting work on AI, but the question I
>> always have to ask is "why bother with a multi-billion dollar computer
>> system when a human being can already do the exact same task for a few
>> pence per hour?"
> 
> Because humans make mistakes all the time, and occasionally this causes
> people to die. If there's a possibility that a computer can cause less
> people to die then it's worth looking into.
> 

And then the solar activity just get to cancel the magnetosphere long
enough (3 minutes ?) to jolt all the grid over the world, turning back
all countries (excepted North Korea) back to middle age for at least 10
years (estimation from official studies).

Can happen any time... Did already happen, at a time (1621 ?) where it
was not critical, but northern lights where visible down to Lisbon in
1938 (25 January).

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> And then the solar activity just get to cancel the magnetosphere long
> enough (3 minutes ?) to jolt all the grid over the world, turning back
> all countries (excepted North Korea) back to middle age for at least 10
> years (estimation from official studies).

If everything electronic stopped then I'd be more worried about plane 
engines and hospital generators than car engines...

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Le 10/01/2013 10:52, scott nous fit lire :
>> And then the solar activity just get to cancel the magnetosphere long
>> enough (3 minutes ?) to jolt all the grid over the world, turning back
>> all countries (excepted North Korea) back to middle age for at least 10
>> years (estimation from official studies).
> 
> If everything electronic stopped then I'd be more worried about plane
> engines and hospital generators than car engines...
> 
not electronic, just the long lines get over charged, breaking the
isolation. In fact, Canada had a train collision due to the signal line
(which occurs to be parallel to the northern lights over a long
distance): the sensor had detected a train, but the light at the over
end of the section got a false data due to the induction in the line...
so a second train enters the section (dual way section, with only one
track... both trains went happily on their own direction until they met.)

The inducted current would also break the substations (where the
isolation around the wires is made of coating... once broken, the whole
wire must be cleared and the isolation made again).

The planes would be a small momentary issue (some would crash, most
would return to autonomous navigation... but without radio from the
ground it could be hard to land by eye-view only. Airport should be able
to run on battery for most to land, once they found an airport).

The real issue is to be "no electricity" over a whole hemisphere or
bigger, for a very long term. Batteries are to be depleted very fast
(less than a week)... no pump, no fridge, no light at night, no
heating... The powerplants might be running, but without a distribution
grid, cities are going to be very hard places: the
replacement/restoration of the whole grid, in such situation, had been
estimated to more than 10 years for the big U.S.A. (and very very
expensive).

And I was not worried about the car engine, but about the "smart"
electric car... or rather the successful automated car everywhere that
everyone would then have.

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>> Lots of people are doing interesting work on AI, but the question I
>> always have to ask is "why bother with a multi-billion dollar computer
>> system when a human being can already do the exact same task for a few
>> pence per hour?"
>
> Because humans make mistakes all the time, and occasionally this causes
> people to die. If there's a possibility that a computer can cause less
> people to die then it's worth looking into.
>
"In all of my experience, Dave, failure is always due to human error. 
This sort of thing has cropped up before and it has always been due to 
human error."

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Le 2013-01-10 08:11, Le_Forgeron a écrit :
> The real issue is to be "no electricity" over a whole hemisphere or
> bigger, for a very long term. Batteries are to be depleted very fast
> (less than a week)... no pump, no fridge, no light at night, no
> heating... The powerplants might be running, but without a distribution
> grid, cities are going to be very hard places: the
> replacement/restoration of the whole grid, in such situation, had been
> estimated to more than 10 years for the big U.S.A. (and very very
> expensive).

Yep. Fifteen years ago to the day, the Montreal area was subject to the 
worst ice storm it had ever endured and areas were without power for 3 
weeks.  During the first week-end, there were talks of having to 
evacuate the whole island of Montreal (1M people) due to the limited 
pressure in the water system and the problems it would cause 
firefighters in case of fires... combine thatwith the fact that everyone 
had reverted to candles, fireplaces, and BBQs.  Fortunately the power 
company was able to restore power to the main water treatment plant 
before the deadline (that water plant now has two 50MW Rolls-Royce 
generators).

The evacuation would have been made rather tricky considering it's an 
island, and that most of the bridges were closed due to ice chunks 
falling from the super structure.

Now, if you extend that to an areas the size of a country, you will 
definitely run into some serious problems.
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