Early and Late TL9

[weby]

It Depends. Basically if you want a listing based on Gurps TL 9 or the TL 8+1 in Gurps terms that we seem to be heading to.

I am replying based on our world not Gurps TL 9 but in terms of the tech in UT. So when I use 8+1 I mean our world and when 9 Gurps UT.

As there are so many areas I will start with .. hmm.. lets say Vehicles as they are fun.

Slidewalks: Replacing roads and sidewalks: Likely not in TL 8+1 at least as even airports seem to have less and less of them.

Self-Driving Vehicles: Early TL 8+1.

Mag-Lev Subway and commuter trains: Likely not in early TL 8+1 at least as the trials have not caused any real world interest.

Super Airships: Likely not in TL 8+1 at least.

Ballistic Liners: This one is more difficult, as due to noise and such things Supersonic transportation is hard to make widely available except for intercontinental trips. None of the current candidates seem to be likely solutions so earliest mid TL 8+1, likely late TL 8+1 or never.

Transcontinental Tunnels: We will see more and more tunnels as costs get lower, but the ramp up will be slow. And the problems with air pressure in evacuated tunnels is a big one..

Wheeled ATV: maybe if SpaceX gets to Mars they will have something similar to that, but there you would not need the high pressure support. So in the form given in UT: likely never. So TL 9, not our world. Similar: Maybe in middle TL 8+1

Smart Car as given with a fuel cell is likely never going to be a primary type vehicle. So TL 9, not our world.

Air Car : This is one of those.. Basically because of the need to move a lot of air causes and lot of sound, so at least as described in UT, no. So TL 9, not our world. But possibility of some other form of flying car: not out of question at late TL 8+1. Likely in that case so that when you get to the highway, there will be takeoff ramps where you can fold out wings and then take off and then land at destination or some similar system.

Light Battle Tank: There will be more light combat vehicles, but more and more of such seem to be going towards wheeled operation from tracked. Also as a detail the write up says it will have a TL 10 laser at TL 9. Also the current experiences of having only 2 crew in a fighting vehicle are not good, so the specific vehicle is likely TL 9, not our world.

Armored Hovercraft: Hovercraft seem to not be used much by militaries except for landings and there are are really no benefits over other designs and several disadvantages. so the vehicle is likely TL 9, not our world.

Hover Jeep: Yes, there are small hovercraft and there will be but it is not a common vehicle. Also the electric version will be earliest late TL 8+1 due to power requirements of hovercraft and it will be a niche vehicle.

Aquasled (TL9): Thsse exist, so they are basically tech earlier than TL 8+1, but the 8 hour duration version, yeah can likely be early TL 8+1

Deep-Sea Minisub; The minisubs exist. But the world will have to change a lot for a nuclear version to be acceptable. So either a secret military one or TL 9 and not our world

Supercav Minisub: Well, there are supercavitating torpedoes and Darpa is researching it for submarines, so this might be early TL 8+1

Tilt-Rotor Transport/Tactical Tilt-Rotor: The technology exists at late TL 8 and is fully viable, but problematic in that as you need to make the proptors smaller than helicopter rotors they need to spin at higher RPM, so the downwash will be heavier and the machinery is more complex requiring more maintenance. So military versions will likely exist in TL 8+1 too, but civilian versions if they come likely more towards late TL 8+1 as there is some future refinement.

Utility Vertol: Same problems as the air car described earlier. So may come as a military vehicle, but a tiltrotor or helicopter is more likely even in that role. So likely TL 9, not our world.


Dragonfly: this type of craft exist today so TL 8 not TL 9. Though in future they will be of course more efficient.

Hand Thruster/Thruster Pack: Thruster packs exist today and hand thrusters could be made easily, so TL 8 not TL 9. Though in future they will be of course more efficient.

Helipack: Some sort of thing like this, sure, but 2 of 3 foot wide fans is a bit low for the expected mass meaning it will most likely not be the "elatively
quiet power plant" given in UT. But overall possible at early TL 8+1, but likely not in wide use.

Life Pod: Technically possible at early TL 8+1, but likely there will not be a need for such until space industry is well established as before that the rescue pod will likely be the capsule/lifter that you got to orbit with so likely middle/late TL 8+1 in actual use.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by weby

It

Super Airships: Likely not in TL 8+1 at least.

.

Probably not ever. The drag associated with LTAs makes them always slower at point A to B travel.

the only real advantage is that they can remain airborne with low energy costs while at low speed. So far drones are filling this niche without noticeable trouble. Maybe, just maybe at some far future date there could be extremely large airships built for pleasure cruises. Purely recreational use is difficult to predict.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Probably not ever. The drag associated with LTAs makes them always slower at point A to B travel.

Airships are one of those solutions in desperate search of a problem. Most of the proposed uses essentially pitch them as a high-endurance alternative to helicopters.

But there's an airship boom every few years that promises amazing new designs that never leave the concept art stage.

[weby]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Probably not ever. The drag associated with LTAs makes them always slower at point A to B travel.

the only real advantage is that they can remain airborne with low energy costs while at low speed. So far drones are filling this niche without noticeable trouble. Maybe, just maybe at some far future date there could be extremely large airships built for pleasure cruises. Purely recreational use is difficult to predict.

You might see some benefit from the noise reduction for thing inside cities or such as even with their higher drag you do not need enough air move to make them airborne like you need with airplanes/helicopters. So a slow speed transport airship would be much quieter than a drone or helicopter.

But given that it would be a niche product and the problems with helium supply in future it is not a likely solution.

Thus I wrote " Likely not in TL 8+1 at least." meaning not very likely, but if they come, it will be after some more changes in the way things go and that is hard to predict..

[Fred Brackin]

[QUOTE=weby;2457173So a slow speed transport airship would be much quieter than a drone or helicopter.

[/QUOTE]

Now you just need people who want a slow speed transport for going between urban points A to b.

Actually this is where one of airship's other big problems comes in. They aren't very good at precise maneuvering even in low winds. Skyscrapers seem to promote higher and gustier winds and LTAs don't like wind.

These are some of the reasons I brought up the luxury cruises. Voyages to nowhere in lighter-than-air comfort.

[weby]

Next computers just for the "oh my, where do I start" factor..

First complexity: it is clearly marked as being *10 more programs each CPX, so only a 100 times faster computers from TL 8 computers. The complexity progression in HT:E&E is much more realistic, according to it we are already at mature TL 9 computers. Basically so that we are a culture that is advanced in computers. The progression has slowed a bit in compute power/$ but snows no signs of stopping. So early TL 8+1 would have gurps TL 9 amd 9 1/2 computers coming to Gurps TL 10 at middle TL 8+1 and TL 11-12 towards end of TL 8+1

Computer options: Most TL 9 ones are pretty realistic, but:
-fast and genius should likely have notes on higher power consumption
-Quantum computer progress seems very slow. So a general purpose quantum computer will likely be late TL 8+1 or later or never..

Interfaces:

Voice control: According to UT the computer needs to have AI for us to use voice to interact with it. But given how well the prototype voice control tech we have works at late TL 8, I do not see that as requirement.

Datapad: touch screen interfaces replaced these already late TL 8. Also a "datachip drive" is far from given..

Head-Up Display: Given the amount of money put into the development or AR and VR and how some high end cars already have a projected HUD. I would place this at likely early TL 8+1 tech.

Sleeve Display: technically possible already today, but does not seem likely as something in use. More likely seems the trend of continuing to get better and better smart watches to fill that niche.

Workstation Terminal: This is already TL 8 tech. Likely will not have 3-d displays unless something radically changes as the 3-d tech does not seem to give any benefits at least in normal use.

Computerized Crew Station: This is already TL 8 tech.

Holographic Crew Station: I will discuss holographics in the comm/sensor part.

Software Cost: the cost of making same complexity software has dropped faster than a factor of 10/TL and there does not seem to be any reason to think it will radically slow down.

Artificial Intelligences

Dedicated AI: This is basically middle TL 8 tech.

Non-Volitional AI: This is basically late TL 8 tech.

Volitional AI: This one is hard to say when it will happen. Current trends put this at less than a decade away and raising at the exponential part of the s-curve, but we have had several earlier S-curves that have reached the plateau much short of a full GAI, Thus hard to say. It might be early TL 8-1, later or never.

Robots:

Drone: will continue to be used, but it really depends on the AI development. Once AI is sufficiently advanced, then these will likely go rapidly away.

Cyborgs: The types of fully functional parts we can make for humans will rapidly expand during TL 8+1.

Total Cyborgs: are not very likely due to societal reasons unless something radically changes.

Biomorphic lenses:
Sculpted Body/Mannequin/Semi-Sculpted Body : early TL 8+1. possible today but not in use.

Realistic Flesh: there is some research going into this but not much, so early TL8+1, but closer to middle TL 8+1 likely.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by weby

N

Artificial Intelligences

Dedicated AI: This is basically middle TL 8 tech.

Non-Volitional AI: This is basically late TL 8 tech.

.

Look at the IQ scores the UT formulas would generate. There is no computer in the world with an unspecialized broad-based/interact with the real world in real time IQ score above 2.

[weby]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Look at the IQ scores the UT formulas would generate. There is no computer in the world with an unspecialized broad-based/interact with the real world in real time IQ score above 2.

Note that broad based active interaction requires Volitional AI, Non-Volitional AI will basically only respond to things, not initiate things, being describes as being an automaton, but being able to learn.

The dedicated AI is not intelligence as we humans see it. It is incapable of learning. The complexity to IQ thing is thus not same as complexity to intelligence as commonly seen. It is clearly defined as a smart tool. Thus this is a system that can substitute for a human in very narrow cases.

The Non-Volitional AI is defined as being capable of understanding speech and learning but still without initiative and so on. So this is a system that basically can substitute for a human in routine cases, but occasionally gets things wrong due to not understanding context where a similarly skilled human would understand and does not deal well with unexpected things.

First some background:

At middle TL 8 we are thus at standard HT complexity scores and in 1990 according to HT:E&E. Thus complexity 4 for a workstation.

So IQ 6 maximum in workstation for a dedicated AI.

At late TL 8 we are at 2010 or after and +2 complexity according to HT:E&E. Thus complexity 6 for a workstation or complexity 5 for a normal desktop.

So IQ 8 maximum in workstation for a Non-Volitional AI

I have selected the workstation as the level in question as that seems like a typical high end work computer or a server in a server farm.

Thus we are according to characters at:
EArlier: "6 or less: Crippling. An attribute this bad severely constrains your
lifestyle." and incidentally IQ 6 is the limit of ability to use tools and language.
and later: "7 Poor. Your limitations are immediately obvious to anyone who
meets you. This is the lowest score you can have and still pass for “able-
bodied.” or "8 or 9: Below average. Such scores are limiting, but within the human norm. "

The IQ 7 situation kind of reminds me of a lot of interactions with many "smart systems" today like the different search engines and similar.

The interesting part thus seems to be that that cannot use tools limit seems to hit at same level as I perceived the computer in question to be that level, will explain more below, but did not notice that before.

Several of our customers work in manufacturing and some of them have deployed self learning systems to help.

The first system that I would say that was a "wow" in how smart a system was a system for plasma cutting planning. The customer cut single pieces and short series of steel plates to forms customers wanted with a plasma cutter.

The basic problem was optimizing shapes to minimize scrap. Most of the pieces of steel they had already had been used, as in pieces had been cut off from them.

There were also dozens of materials with slightly different reactions to heat, with dozens of thicknesses and so on. So things like how wide the safety zones and how long the start ramp should be changed also. Too much and you lose material, too little and you have to discard a piece that does not meet specs.

So cutting the pieces on the correct piece of steel in correct orientation with the correct tolerances was not a trivial thing.

Third consideration was to not have too much material in stock to minimize the capital stuck in stock, but having less pieces in stock again meant that you were less likely to have a piece where you would lose only little extra material. And of course you have limited storage space and get some money back from scrap metal.

So they had a long term engineer doing the production and stock planning. They had at few points tried a computer system to help him place the things on the right piece of steel and so on, but had not managed to find a good tool.

That engineer then left in early/middle part of 1990s(cannot remember the exact year) and they could not find an experienced such, so they faced the prospect of very high scrap rates for a time as they trained a new person for the job. But a salesman managed to get them to try a new self optimizing system as if it worked they would save the salary.

Early on that system was about what they would expect from a new employee with significantly higher scrap rates than the experienced engineer, but nothing specially bad. But the system kept getting better and better over time and few years later it was overall marginally better than the engineer with a long experience. But every time they had a major overhaul of one of their cutters the system would be much worse for a short period until it learned the new parameters of the machines, taking much longer there than a human. Basically whereas a human would go "Ok, we had overhaul, so the tolerances are likely tighter so I need/can.." the program was just "ok, next piece" and had then to learn what worked with the new things.

As for the skill level of that program hard to say but at IQ 6 and optional specialization to a questimate Average skill it apparently had 20 points to reach the "professional skill level" of 12.

So at TL 8 HT software prices it would have cost 30 000 Gurps$ as base price and +5%/extra point=+100% or a total of 60 000 Gurps$. But in reality it cost around 12 000 about 1994 dollars or about 14 000 Gurps$ costs.

As for the late TL 8 that we are currently in there are a lot less interesting examples, but a lot more than I can point to.

Things like smart speakers/Google assistant/Siri/etc understand speech with varying degrees of success but have definitely gotten better over time and they likely get background processing power equal to a server or less for a brief period so maximally that cpx 6 for a short while.

Then we have things like the Google Game playing AI series that learned Chess, Go and other games so much better than a human, though those are usually run in higher complexity, but then you are still talking about programs that can beat the best humans.

Then we have things like the Tesla send driving, that still requires human interventions at times, but the number of interventions/distance driven has gone down dramatically in short time.

And we have all the systems producing art and many others.

The interesting part is that at least on some mobile devices the voice processing is done locally and language skill requires IQ 6 in Gurps, they have likely specialized hardware for that but still that requires Non-Volitional AI according to UT. So that would point to effective CPX of 5+ for a tiny computer at TL 8 that would indicate that 2020 we hit next CPX as expected according to HT:E&E so +3 =1(base)+3(advancement)+1(fast) for a CPX 5.

[weby]

Personal and consumer goods:

Attaché Case: likely will exist at early TL 8+1 as special security tool. Normally used attache cases will likely instead of higher DR get lighter.

Pocket Pack: a weird collection of items. I do not see why such would be sold...

Cleaning Gel: Likely possible at TL 8 and might get trendy at some point, no idea when, so up to GM.

Smart Brush:Likely possible at TL 8 and if there appears need...

Imprint Circuits: No idea why you would print such.. But clothing with Leds and other weird things exists already today.

Computer Clothing: Seems impractical as you would have a different computer with each set of clothes and would need to buy a new computer with each outfit.. So while possible today, likely computing devices would be a separate thing like a smart watch, glasses, smartphone or tablet or so on..

Varicloth: Something like this might well be popular with travelers as you need to carry less clothes with you and still have variety, specially if clothes develop to be more dirt resistant. This is something that is likely possible today or near future, but no idea on the progress of price coming down to reasonable.

Cybervox: Likely never. Likely any TL8+1 multi-function musical device like that will continue to be a peripheral to a smartphone/tablet/laptap where the actual thing happens and the device is just an additional interface..

Euphoria Machine / Ecstasy Machine / Neurostimulator: I do not believe in near future neural interfaces to be widely used, will talk more about those in medical part. The non neural interface part seems.. questionable at least any time soon. So any of those might came at late TL 8+1, later or never.

Android: As defined by UT is a humanoid robot that may or may not be realistic human looking. I think those will come into wide use in early TL 8+1. The reason that a humanoid robot is beneficial is primarily that our world is built to be used and operated by humans. I am talking about everything from stairs to controls for things. So most things that would need to be operated by a nonhumanoid robots would require some modification for that, whereas a humanoid robot can use them directly. The schedule of adaptation will depend on how fast we get GAI. But I would guess that by early 2030s we will start seeing a lot of them and by late 2030s they have taken over most menial jobs and some not so menial unless there is strong intervention to stop it, but that is just an educated guess.

Petbot:I think these will come at very early TL 8+1 and become very popular as the required usefulness is multiple degrees lower than an android.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Probably not ever. The drag associated with LTAs makes them always slower at point A to B travel.

the only real advantage is that they can remain airborne with low energy costs while at low speed. So far drones are filling this niche without noticeable trouble. Maybe, just maybe at some far future date there could be extremely large airships built for pleasure cruises. Purely recreational use is difficult to predict.

If I had a billion dollars sitting around, I'd buy an airship yacht -- and even make it available to the local museums and the zoo for fundraising trips.
Once I retire and can take long vacations, I'd honestly much prefer to take an airship than a jet.

But, all of those are definitely luxury uses. :)