[extropy-chat] Large primes, quantum computing and singularity dismemberment

Lifespan Pharma Inc. megao at sasktel.net
Sun Oct 9 17:58:34 UTC 2005


stem cell bans, codex for natural health products, and laws that might 
prevent
technology from developing outside of military confines are double edged.

If large number use and access is a function of quantum computing then 
this" innumeracy act"
may eventually divert the moore's law pathway into non-commercial uses 
only and possibly divert
the high level computational capacity required by AIs to non-civilian 
use only.

This might confine the initial singularity to non-civilians , that is so 
long as the resulting AIs
do not override this and create a distributed, open source access
under  conditions they feel appropriate.

Socialization amonst AIs might amount to offering to humans the 
evolutionary option to
upgrade themselves to a level at which they become "fit company"  for AIs.

Somehow, the G9 military seems more trustworthy than many of the nut 
cases who have crawled to top
of the world's political food chain over the years.

MFJ




Damien Broderick wrote:

> At 01:23 PM 10/9/2005 -0400, Harvey wrote:
>
>> People are still expecting the singularity within a decade.  It 
>> simply won't happen.  Everybody will think I am too pessimistic now.  
>> And then everyone will deny making these predictions 10 years from now.
>
>
> My take in the US edition of THE SPIKE (revised 2000, published 2001) 
> was this, at the close of my final chapter:
>
> <Since I don't know the true shape of the future any more than you do, 
> I certainly don't know whether an AI or nano-minted Singularity will 
> be brought about (assuming it does actually occur) by careful, 
> effortful design in an Institute with a Spike engraved on its door, by 
> a congeries of industrial and scientific research vectors, or by 
> military ambitions pouring zillions of dollars into a new arena that 
> promises endless power through mayhem, or mayhem threateningly 
> withheld. [...]
>         What of social forces taking up arms against this future? 
> We've seen the start of a new round of protests and civil disruptions 
> aimed at genetically engineered foods, work in cloning and genomics, 
> but not yet at longevity or computing research. It will come, 
> inevitably. We shall see strange bedfellows arrayed against the 
> machineries of major change. The only question is how effective the 
> impact will be. [...]
>           Cultural objections to AI, cryonics and uploading will 
> emerge, as venomous as yesterday's and today's attacks on 
> contraception and abortion rights, or anti-racism struggles. If 
> opposition to the Spike [that is, the Singularity], or any of its 
> contributing factors, gets attached to one or more influential 
> religions or cults, that might set back or divert the rushing current. 
> Alternatively, careful, balanced study of the risks of general 
> assemblers and autonomous artificial intelligence might result in just 
> the kinds of moratoriums that Greens now urge upon genetically 
> engineered crops and herds.
>         Given the time lag before a singularity occurs--at least a 
> decade, and far more probably at least two or even five--there's room 
> for plenty of informed specialist and public debate of this sort. Just 
> as the basic technologies of the Spike will depend on design-ahead 
> projects, so too we'll need a kind of think-ahead program to prepare 
> us for changes that otherwise might, indeed, scare us witless. And of 
> course, the practical, day-to-day impact of new technologies always 
> conditions the sorts of social values that emerge in response to their 
> arrival. Recall the subtle interplay between availability of the oral 
> contraceptive pill and swiftly changing sexual mores, the easy 
> acceptance of in vitro conception.
>           Despite possible impediments to the arrival of the Spike, 
> then, I suggest that while it might be delayed, almost certainly it's 
> not going to be halted. If anything, the surging advances I see every 
> day coming from labs around the world convince me that we already are 
> racing up the lower slopes of its curve into the incomprehensible.
>           In short, it makes little sense to try to pin down the 
> future with any exactness. Too many strange changes are occurring 
> already, with more lurking just out of sight, ready to leap from the 
> equations and surprise us. True AI, when it occurs, might dash within 
> days or months to SI (superintelligence), and from there into a realm 
> of Powers whose motives and plans we can't even start to second-guess. 
> Nano minting could go feral or worse, used by crackpots or statesmen 
> to squelch their foes and rapidly smear us all into paste. Or sublime 
> AI Powers might use it to the same end, recycling our atoms into 
> better living through femtotechnology.
>           The single thing I feel confident of is that one of these 
> trajectories will start its visible run up the right-hand side of the 
> graph within 10 or 20 years, and by 2030 (or 2050 at latest) will have 
> put into question everything we hold self-evident. We will live 
> forever; or we will all perish most horribly; our minds will emigrate 
> to cyberspace, starting the most ferocious overpopulation race ever 
> seen on the planet; or our machines will Transcend and take us with 
> them, or leave us in some peaceful backwater where the meek shall 
> inherit the Earth. Or something else, something far weirder and... 
> unimaginable. >
>
> Damien Broderick
>
On 07/10/05, Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

>> Today a representative from the United States Ministry of Freedom
>> Announced that the Senate is drafting a bill to ban Prime Numbers.  The
>> Bill is called "The Innumeracy & Unpatriotic Calculations Act", and
>> will be an extension of the Patriot Act.  "Innumeracy" is a new word
>> meaning 'unpatriotic Math'.  Prime Numbers are only equally divisible
>> by 1 and the number itself.  This unique property, along with the
>> difficulty of factoring large numbers is what allows for all Internet
>> and electronic cryptography. The government's justification for the ban
>> on Prime Numbers is that terrorists could use cryptography to send
>> secret messages to each other, and these secret messages could threaten
>> American's freedom.  Bush was quoted as saying, "In Kindergarten, kids
>> used to pass secret messages to each other when the teacher wasn't
>> looking.  It wasn't fair then, and it isn't fair now". ...
>  
>

I'm assuming that Spike, with his unwholesome cohort of unamerican
GIMPs sympathisers will lead the revolution.

--
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *

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