Gregory,
I don't think the military or industries related to the military are working
on any sort of a general intelligence system. Narrow AI is fairly mainstream
and I can see the military working on various projects in that realm, but
general AI is a pretty specialized problem most scientists dismiss as too
difficult with current technology. I'm obviously not privy to research going
on in militaries around the world, but I think it is much more likely that
the first general AI will come from a team that develops a sufficient
understanding of all the complexity involved in building a digital
intelligence. The military and other researchers will probably jump in later
on, but the initial breakthroughs are going to probably come from a small
team with the right approach due to the highly specialized nature of the
problem.
Mark
From: "Gregory Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: singularity@v2.listbox.com
To: singularity@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [singularity] Convincing non-techie skeptics that the
Singularity isn't total bunk
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 20:43:44 -0500
I note that Ray Kurzweil, is also an advisor to some military computational
projects.
If I was Ray I would find the gauranteed profit in servicing a market that
does not
have to respond to the market and social ups and down might be just what I
need to
see some AGI R&D turned into prototypes post haste.
A luddite backlash like the GMO foods thing would drastically slow down
AGI in its early phases.
Once military prototypes work under the rigorous conditions of the global
white spy/black spy world , they might be safely brought into the normal
commercial
world.
I most certainly am not a proponent of the military industrial complex as
opposed to the
Japanese and German business models , but it is my sense that that is not
where
the world is headed at the moment.
Perhaps the singularity will be a "top secret" event and it will be the AGI
who will decide how and when to make it "go public".
.....??
On 10/23/06, J. Andrew Rogers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Oct 22, 2006, at 11:10 AM, Anna Taylor wrote:
> On 10/22/06, Bill K wrote:
>
>> But I agree that huge military R&D expenditure (which already
>> supports
>> many, many research groups) is the place most likely to produce
>> singularity-level events.
>
> I am aware that the military is the most likely place to produce
> singularity-level events, i'm just trying to stay optimistic that a
> war won't be the answer to advancing it.
War per se does not advance military research, but economics and
logistics. If it was about killing people, we could have stopped at
clubs and spears. The cost of R&D and procurement of new systems,
supporting and front line, are usually completely recovered within a
decade of deployment relative to the systems they replace, so it is
actually a "profitable" enterprise of sorts. This is the primary
reason military expenditures as a percentage of GDP continue to
rapidly shrink -- even in the US -- while the apparent capabilities
do not.
So you could say that the economics of responding to the mere threat
of war is adequate to drive all the research the military does.
Short of completely eliminating the military, there will always be
plenty of reason to do the R&D without ever firing a shot. While I
am doubtful that the military R&D programs will directly yield AGI,
they do fund a lot of interesting blue sky research.
J. Andrew Rogers
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