From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue May 14 2002 - 20:32:41 MDT
Robert writes
> This is the fundamental problem I have with the sharp takeoff
> scenario. To get a transcendent AI it has to be concentrated
> (speed of light delay presumably cannot be transcended). If
> concentrated, it has to consume a lot of power and produce a
> lot of heat (as well as be vulnerable to high doses of radiation).
I don't understand. A modern office building contains a large
amount of space, and even with today's technology can host a
great deal of compute power. Moreover, a few floors might be
reserved for stealthy hardware re-design. If so, then why
couldn't a hard takeoff occur? By that, I mean that in its
large macro form, the breakthough AI gets so smart so fast,
that it has ample time to get little pellets of itself
distributed far enough away to resist your H-bomb attack.
> This was the entire point of RF's Ecophagy paper -- so long
> as you have detection systems in place (which we *already*
> have in place to a certain extent) its impossible for this
> situation to develop without attracting attention.
Are we talking about the same thing? Freitas's paper is
concerned with nanotech onslaught only, isn't it? One can
scan the document in vain for "AI".
http://www.foresight.org/NanoRev/Ecophagy.html
Lee
Specific public policy recommendations suggested by the results of the present analysis
include:
an immediate international moratorium on all artificial life experiments implemented as
nonbiological hardware. In this context, "artificial life" is defined as autonomous
foraging replicators, excluding purely biological implementations (already covered by NIH
guidelines [65] tacitly accepted worldwide) and also excluding software simulations which
are essential preparatory work and should continue. Alternative "inherently safe"
replication strategies such as the broadcast architecture [66] are already well-known.
continuous comprehensive infrared surveillance of Earth's surface by geostationary
satellites, both to monitor the current biomass inventory and to detect (and then
investigate) any rapidly-developing artificial hotspots. This could be an extension of
current or proposed Earth-monitoring systems (e.g., NASA's Earth Observing System [67]and
disease remote-sensing programs [93]) originally intended to understand and predict global
warming, changes in land use, and so forth -- initially using non-nanoscale technologies.
Other methods of detection are feasible and further research is required to identify and
properly evaluate the full range of alternatives.
initiating a long-term research program designed to acquire the knowledge and capability
needed to counteract ecophagic replicators, including scenario-building and threat
analysis with numerical simulations, measure/countermeasure analysis, theory and design of
global monitoring systems capable of fast detection and response, IFF (Identification
Friend or Foe) discrimination protocols, and eventually the design of relevant nanorobotic
systemic defensive capabilities and infrastructure. A related long-term recommendation is
to initiate a global system of comprehensive in situ ecosphere surveillance, potentially
including possible nanorobot activity signatures (e.g. changes in greenhouse gas
concentrations), multispectral surface imaging to detect disguised signatures, and direct
local nanorobot census sampling on land, sea, and air, as warranted by the pace of
development of new MNT capabilities.
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