From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri May 10 2002 - 23:56:45 MDT
Harvey writes
> Lee wrote
>> within a century we may expect that all the resources making up
>> the Earth will be used to sustain computation, and that one would
>> have to be crazy to keep any of it non-converted.
>
> Oh, boy.... This is where the rubber hits the road. Are you proposing
> that we throw away all property rights and forcibly assimilate people's
> land and possessions into computronium? If not, don't you expect some
> significant fraction of property owners, not to mention countries, might
> object to having their territory destroyed?
I'm sure that this has been a long standing discussion topic---as
it brushes on so many issues---and I'm sorry if I've missed some
good discussions about it.
But the way I see it, a singularity can't be anything but very
extreme, and any non-converted material, including people, would
stand more chance in the middle of a raging forrest fire. Think
of a forrest fire moving and breathing about one million times
faster.
Would you pay any attention to some rules that your extremely
remote ancestors clung to when they were amoebas, even if it
were possible for you to learn what they were? We will be
*very lucky* if the post Singularity AI (or AIs) care about
us so much as to preserve our lives, experiences, and happiness.
To imagine that some vast number of otherwise good molecules
(some trillions in the case of humans) will be left to waste
(from the POV of the AIs) is a trillion times less likely
than supposing that white people---long ruled by law and
treaty---would be able to keep their hands off Indian land.
It's not going to happen.
Besides, why be so greedy? I'll be extremely satisfied and
happy (even naturally so, not to mention what heights I'll
attain artificially), if my pattern is incorporated somewhere
in the solar system, and given a reasonable amount of runtime,
say one second per second. If I get a million times that, it
will still be a bargain from the point of view of an AI, so
long as all the property that I presently own gets converted.
Let's face it: I waste almost all the material around me,
including that which is inside my own skin.
> Besides, I still propose that we only assimilate the inner 99% of the
> earth and leave the surface the way it is as a lobby and waiting room.
Fat chance.
> You can have 99% of what you want without destroying the earth,
> why destroy the whole planet for that measly last 1%?
That would be like pointing out to an oil tycoon that the Indians
on some reservation still had 1% of the U.S.'s known oil reserves.
All he'd think about is how he could get to it, and why it lasted
so long. I wonder how many tons of material the last 1% of Earth
is ;-)
Lee
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