From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Thu Dec 12 2002 - 03:38:27 MST
Gordon Worley wrote:
>
> On Sunday, December 8, 2002, at 01:08 PM, Ben Goertzel wrote:
>
>> http://users.rcn.com/standley/AI/immortality.htm
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Can anyone with more neuro expertise tell me: Is this guy correct as
>> regards
>> what is currently technologically plausible?
>
>
> The Singularity and, specifically, FAI is a faster, safer way of
> transcending. Super *human* intelligence is highly dangerous. Think
> male chimp with nuclear feces. Unless you've got someone way protect
> the universe from the super *humans*, we're probably better off with our
> current brains.
>
I utterly disagree. We will be amazingly lucky if the current
brains are good enough to produce FAI much less to deal with the
world in the meantime. I don't believe we are necessarily smart
enough and sane enough now to do the job. I think quite a bit
of improvment may be required. There is no particular reason
why a super-human will simply and only be a super-chimp btw.
Which brings up another favorite topic. We all hope to migrate
"off-the-meat" or at least beyond our current limitations afaik.
Whether the FAI does the heavy lifting or not I wonder how
much consideration most of us give to what can and should be
left behind of our evolutionary psycho-sociological baggage.
Quite a bit of that stuff is not at all suited for a much
different space and especially not suited for much increased
powers. So are we into hacking our psychology and sociology? I
know some of us address this directly, some also indirectly in
fiction. Some are addressing understanding this "baggage" and
sorting and discarding from it now. As we get deeper
understanding and ability to manipulate this baggage physically
and psychologically I see even less reason to fear super-humanity.
I also would not like to say to most people that we could make
them much smarter, stronger, longer-lived and so on but chose
not to because we were afraid of the consequences unless we
built a FAI and let it figure it out. In the meantime humans
can grovel in the mud.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:41 MDT