[extropy-chat] Timescale to Singularity

Samantha Atkins sjatkins at mac.com
Sun Jun 19 10:27:09 UTC 2005


On Jun 18, 2005, at 11:15 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:

>
>
> --- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
>
>> In other words you not only don't really believe you
>> would actually
>> be smarter, you actually believe you are doomed to
>> or would choose a
>> fight to the death with something you believe will
>> be smarter than
>> you.
>>
>
> No. You are reading too much into this. All I have
> said is that I value my freedom over my life. And I
> will not accept an AI in any more than an advisory
> role in my life no matter how smart it is. There are
> aspects of the human consciousness that I don't think
> a machine can ever surpass no matter how "smart" it
> is.

So you don't consider yourself to be a biological machine.  How so?   
In what way are you not a machine?   How are the ways you are not a  
machine fundamentally unavailable to machines even if they become  
many orders of magnitude more intelligent than you and I?


> When an AI paints the Sistine Chapel or "the
> Scream", I will be impressed.

Some of the AI art and music even with very specialized non-AGI  
programs today convinces me that the day an AI impresses you is very  
near indeed.  Prepare to be taken far beyond being impressed to sheer  
awe not too far down the road.

> I don't believe I am
> doomed at all. Neither in a fight to the death, nor in
> a game of go. I mean no more and no less. If some
> entity whether it be a germ, beast, man, or machine
> seeks to rob me of life or self-determination, then
> let it come.

It seems it was you who cast it this way.

> I am ready. Let it match its will against
> mine and let the universe decide. John Henry did not
> beat the jackhammer but the whole point of the story
> was that he ALMOST did and therefore COULD have. And
> let no one forget that Kasparov did win a few games.

Is this a nerve getting hit?
>
>
>> But you will pretend otherwise suspecting that
>> will give you
>> more of a chance.
>>
>
> There is no pretense. Only emptiness and tranquility.
> The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to
> the strong. I have the chance that I have. How that
> probability function will collapse is determined as
> equally by my mind and will as by my opponent's. That
> my opponent might be a machine with a 2000 IQ is
> irrelevant.
>

In any contest where intelligence is the determining factor that is  
surely NOT irrelevant.  My point is that while the advent of such AIs  
may be a huge blow to our egos and self-image it need not be some war  
against what is.

>
>> Something being (a lot) more
>> intelligent than you
>> does not necessarily mean you are obsolescent or at
>> least not in any
>> way that will necessarily endanger anything other
>> than your pride.
>>
>
> It is not about pride, it is about self-determination
> and free-will.

How would it necessarily be any threat to those?

> I am happy to co-exist with an A.I.
> that does not try to kill me or to control me, but it
> would have to earn my trust.

I am sure the AI will be extremely eager to "earn your trust".  More  
likely you can either tilt at the windmill or find what place you can  
in the world with it.

> Should it prove itself to
> me as a friend, I would even be inclined to do it
> favors. But it goes no further than that.
>

It is highly unlikely that "friend" would be applicable to say a  
human vs ant level of difference.

>
>>
>> I have no idea what you are talking about.
>>
>
> What part don't you understand? There are those
> Singulatarians that would build an A.I. and try to put
> it charge of everything. I disagree strongly with
> this.

Please submit your proof that you and billions of mostly even more  
limited humans are capable of running this world sanely much less the  
increasingly complex world we are ever more quickly moving into.     
It will not be in charge of everything.  I doubt it will care a lot  
about your day to day affairs or mine.

> An AI does not have the right to be in charge of
> anything more or less than itself like any other
> sentient being.

Yep. That is what the ants said about us.  The trick is to do what we  
can to insure that the AIs are much more humane than we.

> We have not abolished gods and kings
> only to be ruled by a unix box on steroids.

Some day you will understand just how utterly inappropriate that  
rhetorical flourish is.

- samantha



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