From: Extropian Agro Forestry Ventures Inc. (megao@sk.sympatico.ca)
Date: Sat Dec 14 2002 - 18:22:03 MST
>From a brief glimse it seems that massive consolidation of data from all
sources
could well set the stage for doing global scale simulations and creating
"virtual earths". The question is who would do this and for what end.
Weather and climate simulations are common.
Human activity simulations are a long way away because of the massive
computational resources and cost . The day when one or more AIs can
access sufficient resources to do these will mark the beginning sign of
"the singularity".
The danger is that simulations may become so good that "big brother"
might want to manage human activity and even human life and death to
duplicate a simulation in real life.
The key is consent. If a country state with 1 million citizens
wants a certain end scenario to life at a point 10 years in the future
and sufficient
simulation power can create it , is it wrong to prevent the scenario
from being
managed into reality?
The world no longer has an "australia" to send its rejects and opt-outs.
Global scale miscalculations are a danger. Keep the screw-ups as small
as possible and the
sucesses as widely spread as possible.
Lifespan extension from say a 120 year threshold to a 1.2 million year
lifespan would make it more
acceptable to engage in numerous simulations which for the most part are
undo-able.
There concieve-ably could be competition for resources between sims and
efforts to create new post-singularity technologies. Sims could be an
opiate of the masses or a "grey goo" which could reduce intelligent life
forms to primordial pond scum. The "Great Link" on ST-DS9 is a simple
representation of a post singularity simulation. Those wishing to leave
the simulation to
have un unplanned life , as ODO did will be the revitalizing energy
which keeps the simulation renewed.
The british TV program "the prisoner" which I saw years ago seems to
be a simplistic but near to the subject study on this subject.
'Nuf for now.
..MJ
Amara Graps wrote:
> http://www.free-market.net/spotlight/1984/
> "Was '1984' a how-to book?"
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