[dale_glass]

Those are completely trivial complexity-wise compared to a modern server, and many don't have a real function, and mostly are artificially maintained as a curiosity.

I mean, the centennial bulb barely glows, that's why it still works. The hotter the filament gets the faster it evaporates, so a light bulb that barely makes any light can stay working forever.

[ly3xqhl8g9]

Sure, was looking for electrical devices, a better example of what great engineering can achieve I suppose it's the Pons Fabricius [1], bridge built 2,085 years ago, still in use.

The problem is, if we can't expect software to run essentially forever, to update without 'restarts', and so forth, how are we ever going to achieve neural chip implants, artificial organs, synthetic agents mining ore in outer space, and so on? Software is not a gear mechanism, a rack and pinion, there is absolutely no reason to restart an 'operating system' or to ever lose state, however we became accustomed and we commit these sort of crimes daily, restarts and refreshes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pons_Fabricius

[dale_glass]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not a problem. It should be fixed.

But if you need a single system to stay up for 3 years straight that's probably not good. There's too much going on in a modern high tech server for that to be a good idea. Everything has a CPU in it (including disks, video cards, network cards, etc). And any of that could make your system unusable by hitting some rare condition.

> The problem is, if we can't expect software to run essentially forever, to update without 'restarts', and so forth, how are we ever going to achieve neural chip implants, artificial organs, synthetic agents mining ore in outer space, and so on?

I would hope such things to be purpose-made and to be made in a way that the user can survive a reboot/firmware update. Eg, your neural implant should be built in such a way that it's not going to be life threatening if the battery runs out. The system has to be designed with that accounted for.

Maybe there's a secondary, minimal implementation acting as a backup and keeping critical functions working while the fully featured one is being updated. Hopefully everything is implemented in a failsafe way so that if it completely stops working you're not in a worse state than before you got it.

Any plan where there's a crucial component that must not stop even for a second isn't a very good plan.

[ly3xqhl8g9]

"Any plan where there's a crucial component that must not stop even for a second isn't a very good plan."

Our bodies, just think of our hearts or lungs, don't stop for even a second for 80 something years, and even that 80 is most probably arbitrary with very few changes in cellular control (instead of cancer, cooperate; instead of scar, regenerate [1]). No current software artifact can boast with such a performance. That's the main issue, our technology does not establish a hierarchy of competence [2], where each layer is independently able to solve problems such as the cell-tissue-organ-organism continuum. We must start digitizing the material, assemble assemblers that can assemble themselves [3].

[1] Dr. Michael Levin: Xenobots, Limb Regeneration, and The Power of Cellular Communication, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_TyON2xWeQ

[2] Michael Levin, What do bodies think about?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVr1OkDqnmo "Nested Cognition, not Merely Structure" starts at 4:32

[3] Neil Gershenfeld, How to Make Almost Anything, The Digital Fabrication Revolution, http://cba.mit.edu/docs/papers/12.09.FA.pdf

[dale_glass]

Our bodies actually have a good amount of redundancy.

The cardiac pacemaker (as in the tissue that sets the heart rate) is redundant. There's a primary and a secondary, and both are made of many cells which can take some damage and the entire system will still work.