[extropy-chat] Forbes Magazine on Robotics

[Keith Henson]

At 10:14 PM 8/20/2006 -0700, Michael wrote:
(Michael)
> > >It's obvious that rockets won't work for serious space exploration,
> > >but then neither will space elevators.

(Keith)

> > You are certain on this point?
>
>The point is moot anyway, because we aren't going into space.  Not far anyway.
>
> > I think in the long run people will upload and not bother going into space
> > or anywhere else for that matter.  Space elevators are like O'Neill
> > colonies, something with a very short window if they happen at all.

>Agreed.  Rather than spread out from the Earth, it is far more likely
>that we will condense into a sphere perhaps the size of a basketball.
>A meter is worlds away when your mind is running at 10^30 ops/sec.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mnr/st/std076

     "Such a vast increase in wealth in a short time is without precedent.
But over centuries, perhaps not.  Vernor Vinge (in a personal
communication) thinks that in many ways individuals of today have more
wealth than a thirteenth-century nation state.  Isabella I had to hock the
crown jewels to cross the Atlantic, something most of us can afford without
credit.  It is hard to compare wealth across a few centuries, but the
computer on which I wrote this article is more powerful than the ones the
government of the United States could afford only forty years ago.

    "The growth of wealth on this scale might make the sum of all the
technological and social changes since we started chipping flint look
tame.  What the technological applications will permit us to do is easier
to predict than what we might actually do: the options seem limitless at
this point.  For example, the human race (or some significant fraction of
it) might use nanotechnology to move into hardware where thinking and
social interaction went on a million times faster.  Such a society might
"collapse" into 600 foot spheres to minimize speed-of-light communication
delays, . . ."

(Article originally written in 1987, this was added before paper 
publication in 1990)

This has been discussed here and on the SL4 list without a definitive 
resolution.  Smaller is better for communications, but engineers worry 
about cooling.  Other places I have mentioned sinking uploaded societies in 
the deep ocean for cooling.

The problem is *when.*  If it is clear that humankind will leave flesh 
behind in ten years there is no need to embark on an energy project to feed 
6+ billion people.  If uploading takes 30-40 years then we need a massive 
energy source coming on line to displace the current ones.

Given that war memes do well in societies seeing a bleak future, it might 
be worth starting even if you think uploading will come before a full scale 
space elevator could be completed just to keep the war memes down.  An 
unfriendly AI emerging as the result of desperate war research is not the 
stuff of pleasant dreams.

Keith Henson