From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Fri Feb 20 2004 - 12:06:31 MST
> > I think you made a lot of wrong points in your response to my essay
>
> OK what are they? I'm never going to learn anything if you deny me
> detailed feedback. I'm doubly keen to know where I'm wrong because I
> put a lot of effort into trying not to be wrong! :)
>
> Cheers, Philip
Ah... no time for another detailed response today, but my main complaint is
that
1) you don't seem to see the dire risk to humanity from non-AGI
technologies. Therefore, you ignore the point that it COULD be the right
thing to surreptitiously develop an AGI and use it to launch the
Transcension, in order to save humanity from other risks that they don't
want to understand due to their belief systems. (Note: I am not proposing
this course of action as a good one... it is way too early to make any sort
of statement like that ... I'm just pointing out that eventually we might
discover that this is the best thing to do.)
2) you seem to vastly overestimate the reasonableness of the average human
... making statements like "If you want to Transcend but don't bother other
people while doing so, no one is going to want to stop you" which flatly
contradict the repressive nature of human governments and belief systems
today, as manifested by many existing laws that cover "victimless crimes"
and restrict free development of technology because of religiously-derived
"ethical" proscriptions
In short, I think you're a heck of an optimist ;-) ... and since I'm such an
overoptimist myself, if *I* think you're an optimist, that's pretty severe!!
-- Ben G
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