I am usually able to convince people that the Singularity is possible, if not even plausible, although I have never actually 'converted' (so to speak) someone to be a Singularitarian.
As always, though, I like to get the idea out into the open, and one thing I am interested in right now is getting across a more concrete notion of 'intelligence enhancement' (and hence recursive self-improvement). There are a couple of concepts like 'Google Mind' or perfect playback memory, calculator in the brain, massively speeding up subjective experience, Matrix-style learning, etc, that are always good to bring up, but I think the having a laundry list of concepts to express some concrete mechanisms for intelligence enhancement may help bring the point closer to home.
On 9/23/06, Ben Goertzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi,
I have been considering co-authoring some verbiage aimed at explaining
the Singularity notion to intelligent, educated non-nerds (together
with a writer I know who is more experienced and expert than me at
writing for a non-technical audience).
Of course this has been done before, e.g. it has been done excellently
by Kurzweil and Broderick, but their wonderful book-length treatments
are IMO too long, involved and complex for a lot of people to take the
time to wade through.... And I find that Kurzweil's graph-centric
approach has plusses and minuses -- there is a lot of mistrust of
"lies, damn lies and statistics"out there. And, I much admire
Eliezer's essay "Staring into the Singularity", but it's way too
intense for most readers....
Anyway, I am curious if anyone would like to share experiences they've
had trying to get Singularitarian concepts across to ordinary (but
let's assume college-educated) Joes out there. Successful experiences
are valued but also unsuccessful ones. I'm specifically interested in
approaches, metaphors, focii and so forth that have actually proved
successful at waking non-nerd, non-SF-maniac human beings up to the
idea that this idea of a coming Singularity is not **completely**
absurd...
thanks
Ben G
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