Re: The Future


"Oliver Wong" <owong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Charles Hottel" <chottel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Oliver Wong" <owong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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<snip>


Right now we have functional level simulation of some regions of the
brain. There are probably several hundred of these functional regions.

Interesting, I hadn't heard anything about this area of research.


There are partial simulations for vision, hearing and some other areas.
There are programs now that are good at picking out the locations of voices.
There are new cell phones out that screen out the background noise. Kurzweil
has some web sites where you can sign up for a newsletter that will give
updates on technological developments. One this week was an article "Learn
Like A Human" by Jeff Hawkins that discusses simulation of the neocortex.
See www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/4982 You can actually access the software
and play with it if you are interested and have the time.

<snip>


Well, I'm predicting around 2047, so what you say sounds a tad
optimisitic, but not entirely unreasonable.

Well he is optimistic. Plus I think the further out you project the harder
it is to be accurate. Well 2047 might be bad news for me as I will be 99
years old in 2047. There will be no chance of immortality for me unless the
life extension predictions work out. Maybe I should follow the bible:

Psalms 118:8

"It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man."



The whole idea of "The Singularity"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity) is that you
*CANNOT* have some idea of what will happen once the technology is
implemented. And obviously, a lot of Sci-fi fiction play with this idea as
well.


Well I guess I am stubborn I still want to have some idea of what will
happen!

<snip>

On the other hand, something with a trillion times the intelligence of
humanity as a collective might not consider mere humans with nuclear and
nano weapons to be a threat at all. Or at least, only as much as a threat
as the common cold virus is to us. Yes, it's *conceivable* that someone
might die from the common cold, but it's so low on our priority list of
things to worry about... The AIs might have more important things to worry
about than humans with bombs that can barely destroy a single planet,
nevermind a galaxy... they might be more concerned with what the *other*
AIs are up to.


Yes but I was thinking of and worrying about the periodbefore this when the
AIs are just beginning to advance themselves. He talks about takinf 1000
ordinary people from a shopping mall and scanning them into AIs and setting
them off to advance themeselves. Progress would not be so fast as they
would have to develop a lot more knowledge. He compares that to scanning
1000 top scientists ans giving them the same task.

He metions the Ais obtaining all the human knowledge available on the
internet. With all the conflicting and erroneous information out there they
could turn in AS's (artrificial stupidity).


He does not address this very deeply.

Understandbly, as we're way out into wild-speculation-land here.

Most of his arguments are with those who say that what he is proposing
cannot be done. He says the super intelligence will find a way to
overcome any obstacle.

It really depends on what he means by this. On the one hand, we still
face the same basic problems that animals face (how can I raise enough
money/find food to survive? how can I claim territory/buy a house? how can
I find a good mate? how can I raise my family successfully? etc.) only at
a higher abstraction level. It seems that mere intelligence is not enough
to solve these problems, because these problems arise from competition
with other agents of comparable intelligence. On the other hand,
presumably AIs don't need to worry about food or raising families (or do
they?).

Well if they were originally humans who were enhanced little by little they
might have children. They will need computational resources, matter and
energy. He talks a lot about that and the possible limits that might exist.
But there is plenty of matter and energy availble for exploitation for quite
some time. We will move out into the solar system and then into the universe
into our light cone, possibly further if we can change or otherwise exceed
the speed of light or somehow send nanobots through wormholes. Eventually
the entire universe could become intellegent and I think that is his
definition of GOD. In one of the dialogues in the book he is asked if he
believes in GOD and he says he believes that the universe exists. He admits
it could all just be a simulation but if it is it is a damn fine one and in
any case we haven't got muct choice but to go along with and try to be as
interesting as possible so it is not turned off.

<snip>


That might not be the case. Think of park rangers to find an injured
animal such as a wolf. They might try to help the wolf, and the wolf, not
understanding what is going on, is aggressive and tries (futily) to attack
the rangers. The rangers are not upset with the wolf, or anything like
that. Rather, they understand that the wolf does not have the intellectual
capability to assess the situation, and is behaving from baser instincts.
The AIs might have the same outlook towards us.

It might be amusing to picture an AI training other AIs into capturing,
tagging, and releasing entire human societies back into the wild for
further study. "Careful there, if you aggravate them too much, they may
start launching missiles at you. It's not deadly, but it *is* bothersome
to deal with. You want to distract them here, and while they watch that
point, quickly place the nano-RFID tags on them before they realise what
happened, and then back off. We don't want to disturb their natural
habitat."

Yeah. I understand Pete Dashwood and Doc Dwarf can both be quite a handful
even for advanced AIs ;-)


- Oliver



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