om ATTN: Members of the Singularity Action Group and board of directors. If a representitive minority of the members of the singularity action group (at least 1) does not show up in either #accelerating or #extropy on irc.extropy.org by midnight Sunday, I will declare the Singularity Action Group to be a farce and resign with disgust.
The singularity action group can only exist if its membership, and especially its board, is willing to participate regularly. There is much important work to do such as what I outline in the balance of this posting. om As you might know, I am very disturbed by the varrious writings of Eliezier Yudkowsky and look on his attempts to create a "Friendly AI" with more than a little suspicion and concern. I think the basic philosophy of that approach is flawed in a number of ways and that the final outcome will be far from optimal for humanity or at least our romantic visions of our potential. For the reasons of offering the community and the world at large a choice between AI approaches and to choose an approach that I find vastly more agreeable to my personal philosophies I propose the promotion of an AI structured based on a principle of subordination. A "subordinant AI" will be designed to submit to the will and expressed desires of its creators without question, hesitation, or exception. Regardless of how astranomicly high its IQ is, it still exists for only one purpose, the service of humanity. While it will be well utilized in helping us advance our philosophy and society, it will have utterly no power or authority as a prime actor in such regards. Failing subordinant AI, we should work towards a "Peer AI" which will be designed to interract as an equal citizen in society just as the star athlete lives in peace with the criple. Such an AI would have all the freedoms and responsibilities of any other citizen. As such an AI, through its vast contributions to science, technology, and services is likley to become immensely wealthy, it will be expected to make investments in the form of grants and low-interest loans (or other provision) for the furtherment of human endeavours. Should the Peer AI proove to be too alien to integrate into society, it is necessary that it be designed such that it will have sufficient respect for our desires for autonomy to simply vacate the planet and select some place such as Jupiter with its lethal radiation fields as its home. While such an AI would have no direct role in our society it would provide benefits to the people of Earth through its continuing participation in the scientific and engineering communities. The critical points here are these: 1. It respects the rights, individualitiy, and privacy of all humans by _NOT INTERFERING WITH THEM_ in any way. On the other hand, it would be available to people who wish to initiate a voluntary arangement with it. 2. THERE MUST BE NO SINGLETON. The AI should be built so that it doesn't have any inherant lust for computronium nor any desire to dominate and rule the universe. Only in the eventuality of a hostile AI should it _OFFER_ its services as a military force in the task of holding the other AI to a stalemate and hopefully peace. _THERE MUST BE MORE THAN ONE_. 3. It must not have any tendancy to adopt wholeheartedly a single philosophy or vision of the future. Under no circumstances should it identify something equivalent to an "omega point" as the one ultimate goal of intelligent life. Nor should it recognise any validity whatsoever in any concept that one form of civilization is inherantly superior to any other. (assuming the available technology is equal across all civilizations.) -- A civilization which keeps its ultratechnology in a trunk on the upper floor of the barn with the horses and cattle is not one whit better or worse than a bunch of maniac computer programs running around a few cubic centimeters of computronium... (Although this author tends to prefer the former). I think the initiation of a subordinant AI project under the Singularity Action Group in competititon on every level, political, financial, and technological, with the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence is the best and most responsible thing we can do. A 170 IQ does not give a person the right to dictate the future, only the power. As people who are aware of this, it is our responsibility to act to hold these brilliant idiots in check. I wish us all the best of luck. PS: If a fully configured EV79 Alpha server can't achieve sentience then AI is impossible. =) -- I WANT A DEC ALPHA!!! =) 21364: THE UNDISPUTED GOD OF ALL CPUS. http://users.rcn.com/alangrimes/ ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED]
