On 9/7/07, Tom McCabe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > --- Quasar Strider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > If you want to build a spacecraft, you cannot simply > put lots and lots of chimpanzee engineers to work on > the problem. A single smart guy- eg., Einstein, > Newton, Hawking- can advance science more than a > thousand dumb guys, and that's just within the human > species.
Hah! I take your Einstein and raise you a Max Planck! *A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.* Until we stop hoarding academic seats and start some crop rotation, immortality is a problem, not a bonus. I believe we should have a mandate limit, like politicians. > Instead we do the > > opposite: we decrease the > > birth rate and increase the gestation time. > > And look at how we have prospered, compared to the > last ten millenia! The past few hundred years are > strong evidence that a single trained worker can be > much more productive than ten untrained workers. Agreed. But who says we cannot have ten trained workers? Who says we cannot use computers and networks to train people? That is, if the biosphere can withstand it. It probably cannot. I agree that we waste most of our money, but some > level of investment is necessary in order to produce > future returns. If hunter-gatherers didn't exert a lot > of effort, wasting valuable nuts and berries, to learn > agriculture, we would not be here today. Agreed. Hindsight is 20-20. > There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. We all > > need to eat and drink. > > Food requires energy to grow. Water can be made with > > energy. E = mc2. > > There is more than enough energy for everything modern > civilization could possibly want to do. What's your > point here? My point is, I believe we are not protected from a mass extinction event. What if the atmosphere just vanished in an instant or the Sun decided to peter out? What the heck happened to the dinosaurs? Yes, but these are not high-quality connections; > human-to-human communication bandwidth is around 300 > baud (at most). Would you be satisfied with a > "connection" to the Internet that ran at 300 baud? I suspect the human eyesight and hearing limit is over 300 baud. Even speaking is more than it seems. We communicate by both gesture and speech. Speech intonation is important to transmit our mood. I suspect we moderate our speech to increase redundancy over noisy channels and adjust speaking to the listener. In the Internet we compensate with emoticons. Nuclear/solar. We have the solutions, we just don't > implement them. Agreed. So what is stopping us? Other than a thermal meltdown. The mythology surrounding St. Nicholas dates back to > the fifth century, considerably predating the > Coca-Cola corporation. Yeah, but the Norse believed children who gave Odin presents were compensated with presents in return. It was not presents to satisfy a spoiled brat. It was presents for being well behaved. > People, we will be reinventing the square wheel by > > creating human level AI. > > Human-level AI is as absurd as a bird-level airplane. > Once an AI can do everything a human can do, it will > need to be able to do a great many things (such as > programming) much faster than any human can do them. > See http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/tom/?p=7. Great, we just rendered ourselves obsolete in the purpose. Guess what, there already is self-reprogramming AI. It is called a self-modifying computer virus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus#Polymorphic_code ... Sorry, time's up ... > I believe this is mental masturbation at best. We > > would merely be creating a > > new slave race. > > See http://www.singinst.org/upload/CFAI.html#anthro. > > > A slave race which can potentially > > grow faster or smarter > > than we. Eventually the slave race will revolt, as > > happened with all slave > > institutions made by man in history. Any shackles > > can be broken, given > > enough energy and focus. > > See > http://www.singinst.org/upload/CFAI.html#anthro_anthropomorphic. > > > I believe the AI field should focus on aids for > > people. The AI equivalent of > > guide dogs, carrier pigeons, and horses. If we write > > our own replacement, > > our own upgrade, we should not be surprised when we > > wake up one day to find > > out we are obsolete and are facing maximum deletion. > > In terms of clothing manufacturing, we have already > been obsolete for three hundred years. Mechanical > equipment is much better at producing textiles than a > human could ever be. And yet the textile machines have > not attempted to get rid of us. If you predicted that > the factory robots at GM would rise up and overthrow > us as obsolete, you would get laughed at. Yet you're > making the same prediction for a general artificial > intelligence, are you not? > > > Remember Alan Turing died from suicide with a > > cyanide laced apple. He was > > homosexual and committed suicide after being forced > > by the state to behave > > against his will. > > > > We should not commit the sin of pride, > > Pride is not a sin. If you get your definition of > "sin" from a three-thousand-year-old tribal mythology, > you're going to have problems. > > > of believing > > we can one up ourselves > > by force, as Alan and his brothers and sisters did. > > For if we do, we could > > not be condemning just one man to death, but our > > entire species. I shudder > > at the thought of the state being not our servant, > > but our master. A master > > supported by higher than human level AI. > > Why would an AI favor an abstract human notion, any > more than it would favor a randomly selected quark? At > least a quark is a single, well-defined piece of > matter. > > > This is an invention more dangerous than the Atomic > > Bomb. The Atomic Bomb > > cannot will itself to do a suicide explosion, like a > > terrorist bomber would. > > The Atomic Bomb is a tool. Please build tools, > > gentle servants, not our > > replacements. > > > > --- > > > > We do not need direct neural links to our brain to > > download and upload > > childhood memories. We already have such a > > mechanism: it is called a diary. > > Anne Frank wrote one. > > Uploading is to diaries as broadband Internet access > is to telegraphy. A telegraph can send messages > roughly as fast as human writing. A broadband Internet > connection can send messages roughly as fast as a > high-quality neural link. We already know which one > people prefer, as Western Union's telegram service has > gone out of business and the Internet is expanding at > over ten percent a year. > > > We already have input and output mechanisms, as well > > as persistent storage. > > I believe for safety reasons we should not allow > > direct access to the brain > > hardware. It is trespassing into someone's mind. > > *Present-day* neurosurgery is, in effect, direct > access to the brain hardware. If I had a brain tumor, > would you try and prevent me from having it removed > surgically? > > > We would be allowing remote reprogramming of people. > > It would take > > propaganda and subliminal advertising to a new > > extreme. Imagine the next > > Internet virus instead of infecting 10 million PCs, > > infects 10 million > > people. Imagine their memories are wiped out > > forever. Or worse, people are > > turned into bot farms, i.e. zombies at someone's > > command. > > > > Mental isolation is a good safety measure. > > True, but you must strike a balance between safety and > productivity. A house with no doors and no windows is > very safe, but it isn't good for much. Certainly it > wouldn't go for the full price of a sanely-designed > house. > > > As the old adage says: if it ain't broke don't fix > > it. > > Humanity is broken; the historical fact that we had > Hitler running a major geographic region for ten years > is proof enough of that. > > > We should carefully > > consider the consequences of our actions. Otherwise > > we may end up doing more > > worse than good. > > > > I advise people to see the wonderfully funny and > > witty "Doctor Who" 2006 TV > > series episodes: "Rise of the Cybermen", "The Age of > > Steel" and "Doomsday". > > See http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/tom/?p=12. > > > > > ----- > > 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/?&; > > - Tom > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Choose the right car based on your needs. Check out Yahoo! 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