From: ps udoname (ps.udoname@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Sep 29 2006 - 04:52:44 MDT
>
> The ratio of speed to memory for digital computers is much slower than for
> a human brain (which it is at present, and always has been). Therefore early
> uploads have much slower thought processes than humans.
>
> An upload requires somewhere from a roomful to a buildingful of computers;
> it can't run over a wide area cluster, the bandwidth is far too slow.
> Therefore it's sessile and highly dependent on the biological humans
> maintaining the equipment; it can't so much as sneeze without permission.
Wouldn't this apply equally to AIs?
Uploads don't gain intelligence at a substantial rate, other than the way
> biological humans do, because in addition to the enormous difficulty of
> gaining intelligence in general, the human brain even digitized contains no
> user serviceable parts.
The brain shows an ability to repair itself and grow, an upload should also
be able to.
Uploads don't gain intelligence at all, other than the way biological humans
> do; they're legally forbidden write access to their substrate in the same
> way humans are forbidden mind-altering drugs (and unlike drugs, upload
> hardware isn't a vest pocket commodity).
I would think it more likely that uploads are either illegal or not
recognised by the law as alive.
I'm not proposing to argue about whether the above _will_ happen, since the
> technology still doesn't exist outside our imaginations, so it's really just
> a case of which stories one finds more plausible. I am simply pointing out
> that there is no evidence for the "upload to ascension" idea, and indeed
> history shows that new technologies always have limitations and
> disadvantages that prevent them from being as dominant as their more
> optimistic advocates had hoped.
Fair enough, but there are many technologies that are more dominant then
people thought as well.
It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to
achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such
statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years.
- Von Neumann
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