From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Thu Oct 05 2000 - 23:55:37 MDT
<Spudboy100@aol.com> writes,
> Your faith, in the Singularity, is awe inspiring, but then so is the thumping
> bible of a Fundamentalist. We don't even have quasi-human level A.I. yet, let
> alone SI coming along to stomp us! Lets get a few colonies on Mars before we
> shudder in the shadow of the machine.
"We" don't have quasi-human level AI yet, but that doesn't mean some secret US
agency doesn't have it (or isn't on the verge of breeding it). Whoever gets
human-competitive AI first will probably not have much interest in publicizing
this accomplishment, because human-competitive AI would be very useful in
breeding greater than human level AI, which would be much more valuable than
mere human-competitive AI.
As I see it, colonizing Mars will be a job for artificial life, not for us.
--J. R.
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been
originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet
has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a
beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are
being, evolved.
- Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
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