Derek, This is how I responded to the below quoted comment from Don Detrich in your email
Admittedly there are many possible dangers with future AGI technology. We can think of a million horror stories and in all probability some of the problems that will crop up are things we didnt anticipate. At this point it is pure conjecture. True, the threat is pure conjecture, if by that you mean reasoning without proof. But that is not the proper standard for judging threats. If you had lived you life by disregarding all threats except those that had proof you almost certainly would have died in early childhood. All new technologies have dangers, just like life in general. We cant know the kinds of personal problems and danger we will face in our future. True, many other new technologies involve threats, and certainly among them are nano-technology and bio-technology, which have potentials for severe threats. But there is something particularly threatening about a technology can purposely try to outwit us that, particularly if networked, it could easily be millions of times more intelligent than we are, and that would be able to understand and hack the lesser computer intelligences that we depend our lives on millions of times faster than any current team of humans. Just as it is hard to image a world in which humans long stayed enslaved to cows, it is hard to imagine one in which machines much brighter than we are stayed enslaved to us. It should also be noted that the mere fact there have not been any major disasters in fields as new as biotechology and nanotechnolgy in no ways means that all concern for such threats were or are foolish. The levies in New Orleans held for how many years before they proved insufficient. Edward W. Porter Porter & Associates 24 String Bridge S12 Exeter, NH 03833 (617) 494-1722 Fax (617) 494-1822 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Derek Zahn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 5:45 PM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: RE: [agi] HOW TO CREATE THE BUZZ THAT BRINGS THE BUCKS Don Detrich writes: AGI Will Be The Most Powerful Technology In Human History In Fact, So Powerful that it Threatens Us << Admittedly there are many possible dangers with future AGI technology. We can think of a million horror stories and in all probability some of the problems that will crop up are things we didnt anticipate. At this point it is pure conjecture. All new technologies have dangers, just like life in general. It'll be interesting to see if the "horror stories" about AGI follow the same pattern as they did for Nanotechnology... After many years and dollars of real nanotechnology research, the simplistic vision of the lone wolf researcher stumbling on a runaway self-replicator that turns the planet into gray goo became much more complicated and unlikely. Plus you can only write about gray goo for so long before it gets boring. Not to say that AGI is necessarily the same as Nanotechnology in its actual risks, or even that gray goo is less of an actual risk than writers speculated about, but it will be interesting to see if the scenario of a runaway self-reprogramming AI becomes similarly passe. _____ This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/? <http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > & ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=48004725-0222a5
