Re: Singularity or Holocaust?

From: Eugene Leitl (eugene@liposome.genebee.msu.su)
Date: Thu Feb 26 1998 - 07:28:33 MST


On Wed, 25 Feb 1998, Paul Hughes wrote:

> > [ unite or get metabolized by the Powers? ]
> I have to say I can't argue with this - this seems liek a *very* real scenario.

The divergent-trajectories-future is unpredictable, the future of
superintelligences is doubly unpredictable. Engineering the Singularity to
make it more benign may well be a dream. The Singularity itself may well
be a dream. Get real.

> Does anybody see it differnetly? And if so, how and why have you come to a
> different set of conclusions?

I don't think that this community is capable of making a major difference.
(Please prove me wrong). Don't forget, the whole industrialized world is
our fifth column.
 
> What disturbs me most about this scenario, is that it suggests that the future of
> life on this planet will primarily descend from 'criminals' that make Chairman

Instead of 'criminal' I'd say 'incomprehensible'. Do you feel like a
monster just because you have made the clay autoreplicators, or a world of
lithobacteria impossible? It's lonely, at the top of the food chain.

_Should_ it be unavoidable, being disturbed is not exactly constructive.
Just lay back, and think of England. If it happens at all, it will be over
real quick.

> Mao, Stalin or Hitler look like silly sand box bullies. Worst still, if this is
> in some way the most common result of natural selection, then it also suggests
> that any other life that may populate the universe is also descended, or in fact
> *is* of the same "evil/criminal" mindset.

No evidence of anysuch within our light cone.
 
> **Please understand that I am trying very hard not to label such acts of global
> human genocide as evil in the traditonal moral sense.

How good that you are talking about purely hypothetical acts only.
 
> Does anyone have any thoughts about this?
>
>
> Paul Hughes

'gene



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