"Billy Brown" <bbrown@conemsco.com> writes:
> > Since we're talking about plausible future scenarios it might
> > be fun, being
> > in the midst of millennium fever, to come up with some. No dates or
> > predictions, just how you think the next few major technologies will
> > pan-out. How about it? (And fifty years from now, when we're all six
> > centimetres tall and living in habitat domes on the moon, we
> > can have a good
> > laugh at them.)
>
> OK, I'll bite. Here's my current best guess:
>
> Computer speeds undergo a very fast exponential growth over the next few
> decades, as the doubling time continues to decrease.
DOH! Such an obvious technology that I forgot about it myself. Note that we don't need super-AI to have information technology transform the world utterly. Just imagine the effect of global communications with huge bandwidths coupled with wearables / ubiquitious computing and net-based information, knowledge and skill services. If you then assume we actually make information and knowledge management useful, things will become rather extreme.
> That gives us two major branches:
>
> If non-sentient seed AIs are relatively easy to make, Eliezer's program (or
> one like it) becomes an SI between 2010 and 2030. In this case we'd better
> make sure it grows up sane, because its going to decide all of our fates.
> If not, we have a period of about a decade in which our entire technology
> base improves with the speed the computer industry displays today. Real
> intelligence enhancement should become possible towards the end of this time
> frame, using neural interface hardware and fancy software.
> After that, the rate of change becomes too fast for unenhanced humans to
> keep up with. Advanced nanotech and uploading arrive within a few years of
> each other, and megascale engineering projects (Jupiter brains, Dyson
> spheres) become practical a year or two later. By then there are lots of
> Powers around, and I have no idea what they will be doing.
They'll be writing books like "Singularity for dummies", "I'm >H, your're >H" and "The 10^7 habits of highly effective entities" :-)
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y