From: Brent Allsop (allsop@swttools.fc.hp.com)
Date: Tue Sep 15 1998 - 09:25:53 MDT
Nick Bostrom <bostrom@ndirect.co.uk> commented:
> Strong superintelligence refers to an intellect that is not only
> faster than a human brain but also qualitatively superior. No matter
> how much you would speed up a dog brain, you would not get a
> human-equivalent brain. Similarly, some people think that there
> could be strong superintelligence that no human brain could match no
> matter fast it runs.
I don't like this. The primordial soup of atoms and molecules
randomly bouncing around on prehistoric earth were certainly less
intelligent than a Dog. Yet they have managed to create/design all
life including Dogs and ourselves, who can't (or at least haven't yet)
come close to matching these complex intelligent abilities. True,
this utter stupidity gets it's power from it's massive parallelism and
eon length durations. But, just the same, pure random stupidity has
accomplished far more intelligent tasks/discoveries than everything
the collective set of human brains, taken alone, has so far
accomplished.
> However, the distinction between weak and strong superintelligence
> may not be at all clear-cut.
Yes, this is what I'm saying. A dog works to survive, using
all the intelligence it can. The DNA must be included in the Dog's
total intelligence. The smarter ones survive better than the less
smarter ones. Thus, I would think, they too, can eventually
accomplish all things a human mind might accomplish even though they
are at the moment a bit behind us.
Brent Allsop
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