Richard, Kindly just let it go. I'm new to the list and not really familiar with everyone's idiosyncracies. What I was applauding was what I perceive as his remark's unwillingness to consider as somehow passe and irrelevent the particularly human concerns and real pragmatic human experiences of everyday life and consciousness. There is a general conception in the public that the AGI community is free-floating above "reality" and chomping at the bits to distance itself even further, soon as possible.
For example, though lacking in the immediate academic background, I'm reading though the recent series of posts about CEV, which I gather to mean something like the much-to-be-desired super-automated-no-direct-human-intervention-necessary software calculation which may be arising fast on the heels of the singularity seed moment in which the summation of all human goals and desires are vectored out and achieved, (sorry neither history or experience or cultural life is any longer necessary -- we'll just compute the final answer for you: it's 5.3), and I think one could be given a little slack if it seemed borderline nutso to them. Ben tried to frame it mathematical terms. OK, circular or not circular , but why not ask the more obvious questions. Like why on earth would any I (regardles of either the A or the G) imagine that the sum vector of all human desires and volitions and conceptions, what have you, amounts to anything remotely worth or capable of implementing. It is like asking what are all the sums of all the color spectrum elements visible in surrounding nature and then deciding to make everything easier and paradisical for everyone and simulate the world grey. But only like that in slightest terms... actually it's much more unwieldy and meaningless than that by far. Well -- just having fun with rhetoric. And I really should try and keep quiet longer till I've absorbed more. Pretty difficult sometimes. Fascinating sub-culture here. You cannot deny, I think, after any reflection, that what is really of interest is the collective, (is it even expressible as the result of some warped super-vector?) set of motivations, psychological histories, biographies, and quirks of a mental and emotional nature of the sum of people involved in AGI, and I suppose as a worthwhile subgroup, those here discussing. What I want to make clear I did not mean, was anything like pointing to you specifically as a fantasist. ~Robert S. -------------- Original message from Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: -------------- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > > > > I have to applaud this comment, and it's general tenor. > > > > -------------- Original message from "Mike Tintner" > > : -------------- > > > > > > > Every speculation on this board about the nature of future AGI's > > has been > > > pure fantasy. Even those which try to dress themselves up in some > > semblance > > > of scientific reasoning. > > [snip Long Rant] > > That is a shame, especially given Mike's record of posts on this list. > ost people here would say that he confuses his own lack of understanding > with the fact that what he reads is pure fantasy. > > While there are many, many people who just churn out pure-fantasy ideas > about artificial intelligence (Exhibit One: 99% of the science fiction > literature), the purpose of this list is (among other things) to allow > some people who know about the technical details to make informed estimates. > > As I said before, Mike's sweeping dismissal could be used to condemn the > work of the Wright brothers, a year before they got off the ground, or > the work of Wernher von Braun et al, ten years before they got a human > on the Moon, or the work of any other group of scientists in the years > leading up to their discoveries. > > > > Richard Loosemore > > ----- > 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/?&; ----- 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=4007604&id_secret=57919512-31ef97
