From: Alexander Chislenko (alexc@firefly.net)
Date: Tue Oct 29 1996 - 19:07:27 MST
It may be easier to use the intelligence to extract the resources
from the system in the legitimate ways than to antagonize the
whole world. The system could rapidly develop superior alternatives
to existing search engines, user agents, client programs, caching
mechanisms; it could broker economic transactions on the online
markets, etc. It would gain much of the power of the on- and off-
line world quite peacefully (isn't the technological system
*already* metabolizing more energy, materials and information than
naked humans?), avoid confrontation-related risks, have its power
base expand, etc. At some point, of course, humans would be too
weak to offer much value or resistance, so hostile takeover of the
rest of the world may make sense then. But by that time, the
"perversion" will own practically everything, and taking over the
humans may be of little interest to it.
Also: Anders wrote:
> Finally a meme invents a distributed model of itself and begins
> to turn humanity into a kind of borganism (individuals still exist,
> but they all run the same memes).
Don't people already run the same cultures/opinions/languages ?
How much of one's intelligence is really unique and personal?
Ask people from the same culture about their individual differences;
people from another culture will look at them as slight variations
of the same memeset.
Configurations of software on different personal computers may me
more diverse than configurations of social skills, ontologies and
belief systems of people with the same cultural background.
It does look like a borg already. It's just not intelligent yet.
Intelligence may come through increasing interconnectedness of the
technological system and meme distribution channels, growth in
reflective consciousness, from human-led research of large-scale
structures to automatic data collection of data on them to
adjustments of local actions based on global data. All these things
are already in place, and their intelligence as well as share of
control over events keep growing. Most people already have no clue
about the most vital processes shaping the civilization - and that
includes even those supposedly in the positions of great social
power. We just may wait a bit longer, and the peaceful transition
of most real power to the "friendly perversion" will be complete...
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Alexander Chislenko <sasha1@netcom.com> www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html
Firefly Network, Inc.: <alexc@firefly.net> www.ffly.com 617-234-5452
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