🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4cjtj4$gq1@shellx.best.com> James Salsman <jsalsman@bovik.org> writes:
  
  jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
  >
  > Does ... envisage a
  > situation in which forecaster on TV says, "We're expecting good winds
  > this morning.  The commuters should have enough charge to be able to
  > start out by noon."?
  
  Commuters?  I can't believe that John McCarthy thinks commuters are going 
  to be even 40% as common as they are now in another fifteen years.
  
Yes, I think they will be at least 40% as common in 15 years.  This is
from experience in seeing the innovations I expected catch on very
slowly.

Yesterday, right outside my window were 6 masons installing ornamental
stonework on the Gates Computer Science Building.  I bet they count as
commuters.  I doubt robots will come along within 15 years that will
replace most manual labor.  I also doubt that even the office work
that can be done at home will move quickly.

James Salsman may think that society will regard replacing commuting
as having high social priority.  I doubt that American society will
see it that way.  The energy religion hasn't enough devotees.

-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/