From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Mon Apr 30 2001 - 17:29:21 MDT
Anders Sandberg wrote:
> > >
> > > In fact, just adding a friendly SI to the current world is not
> > > obviously going to help. How is it really supposed to make religious
> > > fanatics nicer?
> > >
Why do you care if they get nicer? They'll burn themselves out in a few
millennia at the most, since they'll likely refuse life-extension tech
and will be unable to keep their memes intact over such a long time period.
At that point, by definition, the only survivors left around in the universe
will be the ones who survived (i.e. the more rational/flexible beings). I
think that religious fanatacism is not a memeset with long-term survivability
in a very high tech world. Evolution sucks if you're the loser.
What you have to watch out for is making sure that they don't take you
with them on their doomed quest. That's what a Sysop is for. And that's
why adding a SI into the mix gets rid of this little issue. They can't
do much if their weapons won't fire on the people who don't want to die.
-- Brian Atkins Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.singinst.org/
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