From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Sun Apr 29 2001 - 07:55:51 MDT
> I would say that it is a little naive to claim that genetics will not have
an
> impact on the future evolutionary path of humanity. Maybe it is due to a
> limited education that some people would claim this. I fully believe in the
> potential of science, including nanotechnology and AI, but it seems like
some
> people on this list live in a fantasy land.
> J. Mathieu
AI researchers have underestimated the difficulty of producing
human-competitive machine intelligence for forty years. Meanwhile, biotech has
surged ahead with major breakthroughs ranging from decoding DNA to integrating
neurons with robots. The Russians recently released a (possibly bogus) news
item about an artificial human brain which could become the genetic transition
to posthumanity. Even journalists such as Kevin Kelly understand that AI
constitutes A-Life, and that therefore A-Life precedes AI, but the old school
AI researchers just don't get it.
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
Useless hypotheses:
consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism
Everything that can happen has already happened, not just once,
but an infinite number of times, and will continue to do so forever.
(Everything that can happen = more than anyone can imagine.)
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