From: den Otter (neosapient@geocities.com)
Date: Sat Jul 24 1999 - 08:23:56 MDT
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> From: Billy Brown <ewbrownv@mindspring.com>
> As I've pointed out before, uploading is much, much more difficult than
> most of its proponents seem to realize. You are better off concentrating
> on neural interfaces and cybernetic brain enhancments. If you go that
> route you can get your first intelligence enhancements long before
> uploading would be possible. You also get to make the upload a gradual
> transition, rather than an either/or proposition. By the time a complete
> human upload is possible you should already have a significant fraction of
> the population running mostly in software, with their physical brains being
> merely one of many specialized computational devices.
Sure, full agreement here. I wasn't claiming that uploading would
somehow be "simple" though, quite on the contrary: exactly because
it's (presumably) harder than creating a conscious AI, we should
put extra effort into it, while at the same time strongly discouraging
attempts to make conscious machines. By "uploading technology"
I meant the entire spectrum of neural interfaces/ enhancements etc.
which could make our brains more efficient and less organic, btw,
not (just) a single, "instantaneous" procedure that would transfer
one's thought into a computer. I'm strongly in favor of the gradual
approach, as opposed to the scanning method where
essentially a "copy" is being uploaded.
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