On Oct 4, 2006, at 2:16 PM, Joshua Fox wrote:
Could I offer Singularity-list readers this intellectual challenge:
Give an argument supporting the thesis "Any sort of Singularity is
very unlikely to occur in this century."
The Singularity won't happen this century because:
a) Those capable of actually building >human intelligence are too busy
with arcane philosophical conundrums, trivia and pointless debates;
b) We are headed rapidly to the disintegration of freedom and economic
vitality in the US leading to a global economic downturn of disastrous
proportions and/or global war that kills off too much of the resource
base and the freedom/time to use it.
Point (b) is like a longer version of the Peace War mechanism
postponing Singularity in some of Vinge's work. Only I am not enough
of an optimist to think that humanity necessarily finally pulls
through and kicks off the Singularity on the other side of such a
global cataclysm. Generally I think we had best get a move on to
inject much greater intelligence into the system while we still can.
- samantha
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