Friday, January 3, 2003, 11:37:15 PM, Mike Deering wrote: MD>The intelligence of computer software keeps constant with the MD>capability of the $1000 desktop.
I strongly disagree. The "intelligence" of computer software has remained pretty constant. The feature lists (and memory, disk and processor requirements) have grown. MD>When the $1000 desktop reaches sufficiency to run human level AGI MD>it will be available. This is an economic certainty. When the hardware reaches some sort of "equivalence", you mean? If so I can't see the reasoning. If you mean when the software reaches that level, and can run on $1,000 desktop machines...I guess it would be available soon enough, but I can't see the "economic certainty". All the technology for Britney Spears to pose nude for Playboy exists, and there's certainly a market for it, but that doesn't make it an economic certainty (give it five years or so). MD> This will occur before the predictions of the experts in the field MD> of Singularity prediction because their predictions are based on a MD> constant Moore's Law and they over estimate the computational MD> capacity required for human level AGI. "Experts" in that field? Is that something like "DC sniper experts" or "terrorism experts"? MD> Their dates vary from 2016 to 2030 depending on whether they are MD> using the 18 month figure or the 12 month figure. Moore's Law is MD> currently at 9 months and falling. Data, please. MD> My calculations based on a falling Moore's Law put MD> the Singularity on April 28th, 2005. Duh. *Everyone* knows Timewave Zero collapses when the Mayan calendar ends, in 2012. MD> This human level AGI in a computer will be quite superior to a MD> human because of several advantages that machines have over gray MD> matter. These advantages are: upgradability, self-improvement MD> through redesign, self editability, reliability, functional MD> parallelism, accuracy, and speed. Depends on the architecture. Although I suspect "real AI" will be built with most of those features, I can imagine architectures that arrive at near-human equivalent without a number of those features. MD> This superiority will be quantitative not qualitative. I'd say the ability to redesign itself, design iteratively more optimized versions of itself and the like are qualitative differences. MD> It will be superior but completely comprehensible to us. DOES NOT COMPUTE <beep> DOES NOT COMPUTE <beep> We're not superior to ourselves, and we're certainly not completely comprehensible to ourselves. MD> The belief in a radically different form of advanced thought MD> incomprehensible to present humans is philosophical in nature, not MD> based on evidence. <cheap shot>...kind of like your arguments here then.</cheap shot> -- Cliff ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED]