From: Doug Bailey (Doug.Bailey@ey.com)
Date: Mon Sep 28 1998 - 08:39:05 MDT
Tangential to this discussion is a scenario I considered
recently. Since, presumably, an SI should be able to modify
its hardware and software to maximize its information
processing and information storage abilities, it would seem
the most optimal track would be something along the following
lines:
After digesting all of HI knowledge and assessing it with its
own heuristics, the SI would then have to decide what to do
with itself. No doubt, it would identify several paths of
inquiry from its analysis of HI knowledge. It might initially
attempt to determine which path of inquiry would prove most
rewarding (i.e., in terms of assisting it with the other
paths of inquiry). Eventually, the SI would realize the area
that would allow it to maximize its efforts most would be to
determine how to increase its information processing and
storage abilities.
The SI would then embark on a period of self-modification. The
hope would be the development of a positive feedback loop where
its enhanced processing abilities would allow it to find the
next modifications in quicker fashion. Along the way, this process
would allow the SI to accumulate knowledge about the physical
universe. At some point the SI may be able to reliably determine
how much time it has left, i.e., how long will the universe last
since the solution to that query lays a upper bound/limitation
that would contribute importantly to its evaluation of tasks.
Even with its monstrous processing abilities, the SI might set
for itself herculean objectives that would still entail eons of
calculation and data analysis. Such events as entropy increase,
cooling of the universe, proton decay, etc. may become important
since such events might infringe on the SI's ability to complete
certain inquiries. The SI might develop the capability to initiate
universes on its own, either exactly like our own or optimized
universes geared towards its inquiries.
Its uncertain whether this "Self-Modification Period" would ever
end since only two conditions would appear to lead the SI to
abandon modification efforts: (1) the SI reaches a processing
ceiling that it determines it can not improve upon with its current
knowledge base [at this point the SI would embark on other inquiries
not related to modification and might find some piece of knowledge that
would allow it to return to its modification efforts], or (2) the SI
realizes, unable to create designer universes or unable to create
designer universes with enough durability, that the time required to
research and implement the next modification would require more time
than it has, wherein it would begin the non-modification inquiries...
rifling through them at amazing speeds [again the possibility exists
that some of these inquiries might give the SI a way to circumvent
the time constraints it faced before].
It seems to me, whatever form this self-modification period takes, that
an SI would gravitate towards it in its natural self-evolution.
Doug Bailey
doug.bailey@ey.com
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