Planetary Defense [was Re: Major Public AI Backlash Inevitable.]

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Aug 11 1999 - 21:49:21 MDT


> CountZero <count_zero@bigfoot.com> wrote:

> I tend to see most of our technological goals as fairly inevitable,
> given no major disasters,

Yep, the key phrase is "given no major disasters".

> In that vein, how many have read the USAF's 2025 scenario report and
> does anyone know how seriously the portions of it that we would find
> most attractive are viewed?

For those who don't know, the URL for this is at:
  http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/

Just reading the titles of the documents makes me uncomfortable.
Of course the interesting thing from my (our?) perspective is that
2025 could well be the post nano-assembler era and therefore a
time of risk with regard to grey-goo (when you would presumably
want some of the capabilities they discuss -- updated via nanotech
of course).

Most important from my perspective, is there careful consideration of
planetary defense:

   http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap16/v3c16-1.htm

For those of you who don't know, the Air Force is currently way out
in front in the effort to discover near-earth crossing objects.
(See http://llwww.ll.mit.edu/LINEAR/index.html).

One of the most "Extropian" projects I can imagine supporting is
the projects to identify space-based hazards to the planet and
the development of the means to neutralize them.

Robert



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