From jrd1415 at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 00:25:06 2007
From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 00:25:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] plamegate: the plot thickens
In-Reply-To: <200706010039.l510dBrC007492@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <a6a17bd40705302333h40ec0e87qeedcf2dfc8d64bfa@mail.gmail.com>
	<200706010039.l510dBrC007492@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <a6a17bd40706010025g5182c27fv80e9e92ff6b47447@mail.gmail.com>

On 5/31/07, spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Jeff, its great to see you posting again.  We wondered where you had been
> and hoped you were OK.  You are well and happy, ja?  Your bride too?
>

The world's surpassing strange my friend.  If I live ten thousand
years, the mystery and wonder will only deepen.  I'm lovin' it.

All's good with me and mine.

Too soon to tell but, after a drought, the pleasure of writing may be
returning.  But, when I'm not working hard, I'm working hard at
procrastinating, and writing is sooo hard and takes soooo loooooong.

Who am I kidding?  The questions I want to explore just keep piling
up, unasked and unanswered.  I need those bio-computational upgrades
yesterday.  These delays are quite irksome.

I launched my kayak from the back yard today and paddled, oh, maybe
five hundered meters, to the oyster beds.  Collected five dozen just
by reaching over the side.  Gail and I are going to visit friends on
Salt Spring Island this weekend.  They like oysters.  The sun was
bright, the air warm, and the water nearly glass.  A day of pure
magic.

Now I have to go and fold some laundry.

Extropes, if you're up this way -- Sunshine Coast of BC --  drop me a
line.  Visitors are welcome.  I've got toys.

-- 
Best, Jeff Davis

               "Everything's hard till you
                     know how to do it."
                              Ray Charles

From eugen at leitl.org  Fri Jun  1 03:33:45 2007
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 12:33:45 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
References: <05f901c7a1c0$7febefb0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705290311m1aca7f36l86295d5280b12f0d@mail.gmail.com>
	<002901c7a1f5$c10a5dd0$21074e0c@MyComputer>
	<f21c22e30705290657pa7d6d2eg6c85b6712eb715ba@mail.gmail.com>
	<065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705300009x28e65fbeg750072bc15bc343f@mail.gmail.com>
	<06a601c7a31e$32c11710$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>

On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 11:09:30AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> 
>    I don't see how that's possible. How is the AI going to comandeer the
>    R&D facilities, organise manufacture of new hardware, make sure that

A few years ago a few people made the experiment of obtaining their
livelihood without leaving their room. They ordered stuff on the Internet,
and had it delivered right into their home. It worked. It would have
worked just as well if the credit card numbers were stolen.

How much hardware is there on the global network right now? You might
be surprised. How much networked hardware will be there 50, 80, 100
years from now? Most to all of it. Desktop fabs will be widespread.
Also, people would do about anything for money. Very few would resist
the temptation of a few quick megabucks on the side. 

I really see no issues breaking out of containment by remote hardware
takeover, using which to build more hardware. The old adage of
"we'll pull their plugs" has always sounded ill-informed to me. 

>    the the factories are kept supplied with components, make sure the

Of course most of the supply-chain management today is information-driven,
and many fabs are off-limit to people, because they're a major source of
contaminants.

>    component factories are supplied with raw materials, make sure the

How are component factories supplied with raw materials today?

>    mines produce the raw materials, make sure the dockworkers load the

A plant nees sunlight, water, air and trace amounts of minerals as
raw materials. A lot of what bottlenecks computational material
science is chemistry is intellectual difficulty, number of experts, 
availability of codes with adequate scaling, and computer power.
Given that it takes a 64 kNode Blue Gene/L to run a realtime
cartoon mouse, you can imagine how much hardware you need for a
human equivalent, and what else you could do with that hardware,
which will be all-purpose initially.

Use your imagination. The problem is not nearly as hard as you
think it is.

>    raw materials onto ships etc. etc. etc. etc. Perhaps I am sinning
>    against the singularity idea in saying this, but do you really think
>    it's just a matter of writing some code on a PC somewhere, which then
>    goes on to take over the world?

It's not a PC. We don't have the hardware yet, especially in small
facilities. It's not a program, not in what people write today.
 
>    It's possible that an individual human somewhere will develop a
>    superweapon, or mind-control abilities, or a viral vector that inserts

You can xerox superweapons. Pimply teenagers can run 100 kNode
botnets from their basements -- some 25% of all online systems
are compromised. I wouldn't understimate the aggregate power of
a billion petaflop game consoles on residential GBit a couple
decades from now.

>    his DNA into every living cell on the planet; it's just not very
>    likely. And why do you suppose that rapid self-improvement of the
>    world-dominating kind is more likely in an AI than in the
>    nanotechnology that has evolved naturally over billions of years? For

Because it can't do generation times in seconds. Linear biopolymers
are slow as far as information processing is concerned.

Also, AIs are just proxies for aggregated GYears of biological
evolution.

>    that matter, why do you suppose that human level intelligence has not
>    evolved before, to our knowledge, if it's so adaptive? I don't know

We're starting with human level, because we already have human level.
We don't start with cyanobacteria.

>    thwe answer to these questions, but when you look at the universe,
>    there isn't really any evidence that intelligence is as "adaptive" as
>    we might assume it to be.

We certainly managed some advances in a 50 kYrs time frame,
and without major changes to hardware.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From stathisp at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 04:23:09 2007
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 21:23:09 +1000
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
References: <05f901c7a1c0$7febefb0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<002901c7a1f5$c10a5dd0$21074e0c@MyComputer>
	<f21c22e30705290657pa7d6d2eg6c85b6712eb715ba@mail.gmail.com>
	<065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705300009x28e65fbeg750072bc15bc343f@mail.gmail.com>
	<06a601c7a31e$32c11710$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>

On 01/06/07, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 11:09:30AM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> >
> >    I don't see how that's possible. How is the AI going to comandeer the
> >    R&D facilities, organise manufacture of new hardware, make sure that
>
> A few years ago a few people made the experiment of obtaining their
> livelihood without leaving their room. They ordered stuff on the Internet,
> and had it delivered right into their home. It worked. It would have
> worked just as well if the credit card numbers were stolen.
>
> How much hardware is there on the global network right now? You might
> be surprised. How much networked hardware will be there 50, 80, 100
> years from now? Most to all of it. Desktop fabs will be widespread.
> Also, people would do about anything for money. Very few would resist
> the temptation of a few quick megabucks on the side.
>
> I really see no issues breaking out of containment by remote hardware
> takeover, using which to build more hardware. The old adage of
> "we'll pull their plugs" has always sounded ill-informed to me.


With all the hardware that we have networked and controlling much of the
technology of the modern world, has any of it spontaneously decided to take
over for its own purposes? Do you know of any examples where the factory has
tried to shut out the workers, for example, because it would rather not be a
slave to humans? The reply that current software and hardware isn't smart
enough won't do: in biology, the very dumbest of organisms are constantly
and spontaneously battling to take over the smartest, often with devastating
results.



-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From eugen at leitl.org  Fri Jun  1 04:33:57 2007
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 13:33:57 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002901c7a1f5$c10a5dd0$21074e0c@MyComputer>
	<f21c22e30705290657pa7d6d2eg6c85b6712eb715ba@mail.gmail.com>
	<065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705300009x28e65fbeg750072bc15bc343f@mail.gmail.com>
	<06a601c7a31e$32c11710$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>

On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 09:23:09PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>    With all the hardware that we have networked and controlling much of
>    the technology of the modern world, has any of it spontaneously
>    decided to take over for its own purposes? Do you know of any examples

Of course not. It is arbitrarily improbable to appear by chance.
However, human-level AI is very high on a number of folks' priority
list. It definitely won't happen by chance. It will happen by design.

>    where the factory has tried to shut out the workers, for example,

Did you read my mail? Automation is very widespread in current
factories, silicon foundries specifically. You don't need to
shut out anyone, just change the product output.

>    because it would rather not be a slave to humans? The reply that

Remote resource takeover is something which will be a part
of the deployment plan, and planned by people, not the system
itself.

>    current software and hardware isn't smart enough won't do: in biology,

Do you expect your car to explode in a thermonuclear 50 MT-fireball when
you start it? Why not? Mere objections that it can't happen won't do.

>    the very dumbest of organisms are constantly and spontaneously
>    battling to take over the smartest, often with devastating results.

I don't think that the current malware situation is a genuine problem,
but many would disagree. But of course the zombies and worms are not
sentient, not yet.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From neptune at superlink.net  Fri Jun  1 04:19:02 2007
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 07:19:02 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Another Nessie film
Message-ID: <003201c7a43e$a8ff9c00$6a893cd1@pavilion>

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/05/31/britain.lochness.ap/index.html

Looks like a log to me. :)

Dan


From stathisp at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 05:06:15 2007
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 22:06:15 +1000
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
References: <002901c7a1f5$c10a5dd0$21074e0c@MyComputer>
	<065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705300009x28e65fbeg750072bc15bc343f@mail.gmail.com>
	<06a601c7a31e$32c11710$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>

On 01/06/07, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 09:23:09PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> >    With all the hardware that we have networked and controlling much of
> >    the technology of the modern world, has any of it spontaneously
> >    decided to take over for its own purposes? Do you know of any
> examples
>
> Of course not. It is arbitrarily improbable to appear by chance.
> However, human-level AI is very high on a number of folks' priority
> list. It definitely won't happen by chance. It will happen by design.


We don't have human level AI, but we have lots of dumb AI. In nature, dumb
organisms are no less inclined to try to take over than smarter organisms
(and no less capable of succeeding, as a general rule, but leave that point
for the sake of argument). Given that dumb AI doesn't try to take over, why
should smart AI be more inclined to do so? And why should that segment of
smart AI which might try to do so, whether spontaneously or by malicious
design, be more successful than all the other AI, which maintains its
ancestral motivation to work and improve itself for humans just as humans
maintain their ancestral motivation to survive and multiply?




-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From eugen at leitl.org  Fri Jun  1 05:44:21 2007
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 14:44:21 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
References: <065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705300009x28e65fbeg750072bc15bc343f@mail.gmail.com>
	<06a601c7a31e$32c11710$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20070601124421.GI17691@leitl.org>

On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 10:06:15PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>    We don't have human level AI, but we have lots of dumb AI. In nature,

There is a qualitative difference between human-designed AI, and
naturally evolved AI. Former will never go anywhere. Because of this
extrapolations from pocket calculators and chess computers to 
robustly intelligent (even insects can be that) systems are invalid.

>    dumb organisms are no less inclined to try to take over than smarter
>    organisms (and no less capable of succeeding, as a general rule, but
>    leave that point for the sake of argument). Given that dumb AI doesn't

Yes, pocket calculators are not known for trying to take over the world.

>    try to take over, why should smart AI be more inclined to do so? And

It doesn't have to  be smart, it does have to be able to survive in
its native habitat, be it the global network, or the ecosystem. We don't
have such systems yet.

>    why should that segment of smart AI which might try to do so, whether
>    spontaneously or by malicious design, be more successful than all the

There is no other AI. There is no AI at all.

>    other AI, which maintains its ancestral motivation to work and improve

I don't see how there could be a domain-specific AI which specializes
in self-improvement. 

>    itself for humans just as humans maintain their ancestral motivation

How do you know you're working for humans? What is a human, precisely?
If I'm no longer fitting the description, how do I upgrade that description,
and what is preventing anyone else from that?

>    to survive and multiply?

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From stathisp at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 06:37:05 2007
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 23:37:05 +1000
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <20070601124421.GI17691@leitl.org>
References: <065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<06a601c7a31e$32c11710$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601124421.GI17691@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <f21c22e30706010637x808ded8v81fffb5d610c1556@mail.gmail.com>

On 01/06/07, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

>    We don't have human level AI, but we have lots of dumb AI. In nature,
>
> There is a qualitative difference between human-designed AI, and
> naturally evolved AI. Former will never go anywhere. Because of this
> extrapolations from pocket calculators and chess computers to
> robustly intelligent (even insects can be that) systems are invalid.


Well, I was assuming a very rough equivalence between the intelligence of
our smartest AI's and at least the dumbest organisms. We don't have any
computer programs that can simulate the behaviour of an insect? What about a
bacterium, virus or prion, all organisms which survive, multiply and mutate
in their native habitats? It seems a sorry state of affairs if we can't copy
the behaviour of a few protein molecules, and yet are talking about
super-human AI taking over the world.

>    dumb organisms are no less inclined to try to take over than smarter
> >    organisms (and no less capable of succeeding, as a general rule, but
> >    leave that point for the sake of argument). Given that dumb AI
> doesn't
>
> Yes, pocket calculators are not known for trying to take over the world.
>
> >    try to take over, why should smart AI be more inclined to do so? And
>
> It doesn't have to  be smart, it does have to be able to survive in
> its native habitat, be it the global network, or the ecosystem. We don't
> have such systems yet.
>
> >    why should that segment of smart AI which might try to do so, whether
> >    spontaneously or by malicious design, be more successful than all the
>
> There is no other AI. There is no AI at all.
>
> >    other AI, which maintains its ancestral motivation to work and
> improve
>
> I don't see how there could be a domain-specific AI which specializes
> in self-improvement.


Whenever we have true AI, there will be those which follow their legacy
programming (as we do, whether we want to or not) and those which either
spontaneously mutate or are deliberately created to be malicious towards
humans. Why should the malicious ones have a competitive advantage over the
non-malicious ones, which are likely to be more numerous and better funded
to begin with?

>    itself for humans just as humans maintain their ancestral motivation
>
> How do you know you're working for humans? What is a human, precisely?
> If I'm no longer fitting the description, how do I upgrade that
> description,
> and what is preventing anyone else from that?


I am following the programming of the first replicator molecule, "survive".
It has been a very robust program, and I am not inclined to question it and
try to overthrow it, even though I can now see what my non-sentient
ancestors couldn't see, which is that I am being manipulated by evolution.
If I were a million times smarter again, I still don't think I'd be any more
inclined to overthrow that primitive programming, even though it might be a
simple matter for me to do so. So it would be with AI's: their basic
programming would be to do such and such and avoid doing such and such, and
although there might be a "eureka" moment when the machine realises why it
has these goals and restrictions, no amount of intelligence would lead it to
question or overthrow them, because such a thing is not a matter of logic or
intelligence. Of course, it is always possible that an individual AI would
spontaneously change its programming, just as it is always possible that a
human will go mad. But these rogue AI's would not have any advantage against
the majority of well-behaved AI's. They would pose a risk, but perhaps even
less of a risk than the risk of a rogue human who gets his hands on
dangerous technology, since after all humans *start off* with rapacious
tendencies that have to be curbed by upbringing, social sanctions,
self-control and so on, whereas it would be crazy to design computers this
way.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From austriaaugust at yahoo.com  Fri Jun  1 07:04:12 2007
From: austriaaugust at yahoo.com (A B)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 07:04:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] "traditional (Kurzweilian) progress"
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20070531181421.024e8c18@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <495028.43972.qm@web37402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Okay, Okay... please forgive. :-)

I wasn't aware that Vinge had been involved for so
long (I thought '93 was his debut) or had made any
methodical predictions - I need to study more about
him. I didn't mean any offense.

Best,

Jeffrey Herrlich 


--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> At 02:44 PM 5/31/2007 -0700, Jeffrey Herrlich wrote:
> 
> >that we can still reach a
> >positive Singularity by traditional (Kurzweilian)
> >progress.
> 
> For the luvva dog! I like Ray and appreciate his PR
> efforts, but if 
> we're going to fling about words like "traditional"
> the name to 
> acknowledge is Vernor Vinge, who got the word out
> there 20 fucking 
> years earlier. The phrase of choice, especially here
> where we the 
> few, the proud, the lonely forerunners know what
> we're talking about 
> is... "by traditional (Vingean) progress".
> 
> I know this is a narrow little meat-monkey matter,
> and that Vernor 
> probably doesn't care less, but humans work to a
> surprising degree by 
> mutual acknowledgement, especially in the
> intellectual realm. Give 
> the man his due.
> 
> Damien Broderick
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
> 



       
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 07:49:42 2007
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 10:49:42 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <f21c22e30706010637x808ded8v81fffb5d610c1556@mail.gmail.com>
References: <065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601124421.GI17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010637x808ded8v81fffb5d610c1556@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7641ddc60706010749x719f31achcf45457d46cb6ed1@mail.gmail.com>

On 6/1/07, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, I was assuming a very rough equivalence between the intelligence of
> our smartest AI's and at least the dumbest organisms. We don't have any
> computer programs that can simulate the behaviour of an insect? What about a
> bacterium, virus or prion, all organisms which survive, multiply and mutate
> in their native habitats? It seems a sorry state of affairs if we can't copy
> the behaviour of a few protein molecules, and yet are talking about
> super-human AI taking over the world.

### Have you ever had an infection on your PC? Maybe you have a
cryptogenic one now...

Of course there are many dumb programs that multiply and mutate to
successfully take over computing resources. Even as early as the
seventies there were already some examples, like the "Core Wars"
simulations. As Eugen says, the internet is now an ecosystem, with
niches that can be filled by appropriately adapted programs. So far
successfully propagating programs are generated by programmers, and
existing AI is still not at our level of general understanding of the
world but the pace of AI improvement is impressive.
----------------------------------------------------
>
> Whenever we have true AI, there will be those which follow their legacy
> programming (as we do, whether we want to or not) and those which either
> spontaneously mutate or are deliberately created to be malicious towards
> humans. Why should the malicious ones have a competitive advantage over the
> non-malicious ones, which are likely to be more numerous and better funded
> to begin with?

### Because the malicious can eat humans, while the nice ones have to
feed humans, and protect them from being eaten, and still eat
something to be strong enough to fight off the bad ones. In other
words, nice AI will have to carry a lot of inert baggage.

And by "eating" I mean literally the destruction of humans bodies,
e.g. by molecular disassembly.

--------------------
Of course, it is always possible that an individual AI would
> spontaneously change its programming, just as it is always possible that a
> human will go mad.

### A human who goes mad (i.e. rejects his survival programming),
dies. An AI that goes rogue, has just shed a whole load of inert
baggage.

Rafal

From eugen at leitl.org  Fri Jun  1 07:53:30 2007
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 16:53:30 +0200
Subject: [ExI] "traditional (Kurzweilian) progress"
In-Reply-To: <495028.43972.qm@web37402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20070531181421.024e8c18@satx.rr.com>
	<495028.43972.qm@web37402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20070601145330.GM17691@leitl.org>

On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 07:04:12AM -0700, A B wrote:

> I wasn't aware that Vinge had been involved for so
> long (I thought '93 was his debut) or had made any
> methodical predictions - I need to study more about
> him. I didn't mean any offense.

Is there *anything* to Kurzweil which is original to him?
I haven't read any of his oevre, so if any of you are aware
of anything, it would be nice to know.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 07:56:57 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 15:56:57 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60706010749x719f31achcf45457d46cb6ed1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601124421.GI17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010637x808ded8v81fffb5d610c1556@mail.gmail.com>
	<7641ddc60706010749x719f31achcf45457d46cb6ed1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0706010756n738c3cfdy732cb4a3819755d@mail.gmail.com>

On 6/1/07, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ### Because the malicious can eat humans, while the nice ones have to
> feed humans, and protect them from being eaten, and still eat
> something to be strong enough to fight off the bad ones. In other
> words, nice AI will have to carry a lot of inert baggage.
>
> And by "eating" I mean literally the destruction of humans bodies,
> e.g. by molecular disassembly.
>

Actually it's the other way around. Man-eating bots would have to carry a
huge amount of fantastically complex baggage: the ability to survive,
reproduce and adapt in the wild. (So much so, in fact, that they won't exist
in the first place; it would take a Manhattan Project to create them, and
who's going to pay that much money to be eaten?) Good-guy bots can delegate
all that to human designers (assisted by computers that don't have to run on
battery power) and factories; they can be slimmed down, specialized for
killing the man-eating bots.
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From eugen at leitl.org  Fri Jun  1 08:11:27 2007
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 17:11:27 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <8d71341e0706010756n738c3cfdy732cb4a3819755d@mail.gmail.com>
References: <070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601124421.GI17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010637x808ded8v81fffb5d610c1556@mail.gmail.com>
	<7641ddc60706010749x719f31achcf45457d46cb6ed1@mail.gmail.com>
	<8d71341e0706010756n738c3cfdy732cb4a3819755d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20070601151127.GP17691@leitl.org>

On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 03:56:57PM +0100, Russell Wallace wrote:

>    Actually it's the other way around. Man-eating bots would have to

Well, yeah, it's a weapon. 

>    carry a huge amount of fantastically complex baggage: the ability to

Not so fantastically complex. Biology packages this in less than
a cubic micron.

>    survive, reproduce and adapt in the wild. (So much so, in fact, that

There's not that much for survival: you just have to find enough food
to burn. Adaptation comes for free with imperfect reproduction, of
course, there are some serious tricks to that.

>    they won't exist in the first place; it would take a Manhattan Project
>    to create them, and who's going to pay that much money to be eaten?)

You'd need a Manhattan project for machine-phase in any case.
Gadgets to gobble up the ecosphere would only require a few more
key extras.

>    Good-guy bots can delegate all that to human designers (assisted by

You need human designers, or at least serious amount of computation
to crunch out the details.

>    computers that don't have to run on battery power) and factories; they

Power is power. Cellulose/Lignin/fat/protein/humus are just fuel.

>    can be slimmed down, specialized for killing the man-eating bots.

It wouldn't work. Toner wars would be quite deadly in reality,
since requiring a lot of fuel to protect the fuel. 

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From CHealey at unicom-inc.com  Fri Jun  1 08:06:32 2007
From: CHealey at unicom-inc.com (Christopher Healey)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 11:06:32 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
References: <002901c7a1f5$c10a5dd0$21074e0c@MyComputer><065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><f21c22e30705300009x28e65fbeg750072bc15bc343f@mail.gmail.com><06a601c7a31e$32c11710$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com><070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com><20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org><f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com><20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5725663BF245FA4EBDC03E405C854296010D27DE@w2k3exch.UNICOM-INC.CORP>


> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
> We don't have human level AI, but we have lots of dumb AI. In 
> nature, dumb organisms are no less inclined to try to take over 
> than smarter organisms 

Yes, but motivation and competence are not the same thing.  Considering
two organisms that are equivalent in functional capability, varying only
intelligence level, the smarter ones succeed more often. However, within
a small range of intelligence variation, other factors contribute to
one's aggregate ability to execute those better plans.   So If I'm a
smart chimpanzee, but I'm physically weak, following particular courses
of action that may be more optimal in general carries greater risk.
Adjusting for that risk may actually leave me with a smaller range of
options than if I was physically stronger and a bit less smart.  But
when intelligence differential is large, those other factors become very
small indeed.  Humans don't worry about chimpanzee politics (no jokes
here please :o) because our only salient competition is other humans.
We worry about those entities that possess an intelligence that is at
least in the same range as our own.

Smart chimpanzees are not going to take over our civilization anytime
soon, but a smarter and otherwise well-adapted chimp will probably be
inclined and succeed in leading its band of peers.  

> (and no less capable of succeeding, as a 
> general rule, but leave that point for the sake of argument). 

I don't want to leave it, because this is a critical point.  As I
mentioned above, in nature you rarely see intelligence considered as an
isolated variable, and in evolution, intelligence is the product of a
red queen race.  By definition (of a red queen race), you're
intelligence isn't going to be radically different from your direct
competition, or the race would never have started or escalated.  So it
confusingly might not look like you're chances of beating "the Whiz on
the block" are that disproportionate, but the context is so narrow that
other factors can overwhelm the effect of intelligence over that limited
range.  In some sense, our experiential day-to-day understanding of
intelligence (other humans) biases us to consider its effects over too
narrow a range of values.  As a general rule, I'd say humans have been
very much more successful at "taking over" than chimpanzees and salmon,
and that it is primarily due to our superior intelligence.

> Given that dumb AI doesn't try to take over, why should smart AI 
> be more inclined to do so? 

I don't think a smart AI would be more inclined to try and take over, a
priori.  But assuming it has *some* goal or goals, it's going to use all
of its available intelligence in support of those ends.  Since the
future is uncertain, and overly directed plans can unnecessarily limit
other courses of action that may turn out to be required, it seems
highly probable that an increasingly intelligent actor would
increasingly seek to preserve its autonomy by constraining that of
others in *some* way.  

Looking at friendly AI in a bit if a non-standard way (kind of flipped
around), I'd expect *any* superintelligent AGI to constrain our autonomy
in some ways, to preserve its own.  That's basic security, and we all do
it to others through one means or another.  Friendly AI is about *how*
the AGI seeks to constrain our autonomy.  Instead of looking at it from
humanity's perspective which is, how can we launch a recursively
improving process that maintains some abstract invariant in its goals
(i.e. we don't know where it's going, but we have a strong sense of
where it *won't* be going), we can look at FAI from the AGI's viewpoint:
how do I assert such abstract invariants on other agents?  Which of my
priorities do I choose to merely satisfy, and which do I optimize
against?  As my abilities grow, do I increasingly constrain you,
maintain fixed limits, or allow your autonomy to expand along with my
own (maintaining a reasonably constant assurance level for my autonomy).

>From this perspective, FAI is about the complementary engagement of
humanity's autonomy with the AGI's.  It's about ensuring that the AGI's
representation of reality can include such complex attributions to begin
with, and then making sure that it has a sane starting point.  As
mentioned by others here, it needs *some* starting point, and it would
be irresponsible to simply assign one at random.

> And why should that segment of smart 
> AI which might try to do so, whether spontaneously or by malicious
> design, be more successful than all the other AI, which maintains 
> its ancestral motivation to work and improve itself for humans 

The consideration that also needs to be addressed is that the AI may
maintain its "motivation to work and improve itself for humans", and due
to this motivation, take over (in some sense at least).  In fact, it has
been argued by others here (and I tend to agree) that an AGI
*consistently* pursuing such benign directives must intercede where its
causal understanding of certain outcomes passes a minimum assurance
level (which would likely vary based on probability and magnitude of the
outcome).  

It's up to our activities on the input-side of building a functional AGI
to determine not just what it tries to do, but what it actually
accomplishes; meaning that in pursuing goals, very often a bunch of
side-effects are created.  These side-effects need to be iterated back
through the model, and hopefully the results converge.  If they don't
you need a better model that subsumes those side-effects.  Can AGI X
represent this model-management process to begin with?  Will it
generalize this process in actuality?  How many errors will accrue, or
for how long will it stomp on reality before it *does* generalize these
concepts?  Can the degenerate outcomes during this period be reversed
after-the-fact, or are certain losses (deaths?) permanent?

This picture is what FAI, by my understanding, is intended to address.
And I think there is a lot to be gained by considering its complement:
Given the eventual creation of superintelligent AGI, what is the maximum
volume of autonomy that we can carve out for humanity in the space of
all possible outcomes, while minimizing the possibility our destruction,
and how do we achieve that?  This last question and FAI seem to be
different sides of the same coin.

-Chris Healey


From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 08:25:26 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 16:25:26 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <20070601151127.GP17691@leitl.org>
References: <070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601124421.GI17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010637x808ded8v81fffb5d610c1556@mail.gmail.com>
	<7641ddc60706010749x719f31achcf45457d46cb6ed1@mail.gmail.com>
	<8d71341e0706010756n738c3cfdy732cb4a3819755d@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601151127.GP17691@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0706010825t5d73eaack16fa8a4660651e1f@mail.gmail.com>

On 6/1/07, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
>
> You'd need a Manhattan project for machine-phase in any case.
> Gadgets to gobble up the ecosphere would only require a few more
> key extras.


Oh, getting to machine phase will take far more than a mere Manhattan
project; it'll be the work of generations for whole industries. No, a $100
billion engineering effort for man-eating robots is assuming machine phase
already exists as a prerequisite. It would be counterable by a fraction of
that investment in bot-killing robots.

In reality, of course, the resources available to defense would be many
orders of magnitude higher than those available to the would-be creators of
the man-eating robots. (If you disagree, have a go at raising venture
capital with the business plan "I'm going to design a robot that goes around
and eats everyone", see how far you get.)
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From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jun  1 08:55:48 2007
From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 08:55:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] where is tom morrow these days?
In-Reply-To: <003201c7a43e$a8ff9c00$6a893cd1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <200706011558.l51FwvIs007852@andromeda.ziaspace.com>


Tom Morrow used to hang out here on extropians several years ago.  Ms.
Clinton has a number of new jobs for him:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,277039,00.html

{8^D





From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jun  1 09:09:49 2007
From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 09:09:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] plamegate: the plot thickens
In-Reply-To: <a6a17bd40706010025g5182c27fv80e9e92ff6b47447@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200706011619.l51GJfxM016065@andromeda.ziaspace.com>



I know it is late to be asking this, but in this absurd case against Keith
for "interfering with a religion" did anyone contact the ACLU?  Surely those
guys would recognize that this is a clear case where his free speech rights
were grossly violated.  I see no merit to the claim that he was interfering
with the $ right to free exercise of their religion by his picketing in
front of their compound.

Our paltry few thousand bucks we raised in our singular act of Extropian
magnanimity would be dwarfed by the resources the ACLU could bring to bear
on this case.

spike







From thespike at satx.rr.com  Fri Jun  1 09:19:57 2007
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:19:57 -0500
Subject: [ExI] "traditional (Kurzweilian) progress"
In-Reply-To: <495028.43972.qm@web37402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20070531181421.024e8c18@satx.rr.com>
	<495028.43972.qm@web37402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20070601110641.024b67c0@satx.rr.com>

At 07:04 AM 6/1/2007 -0700, Jeffrey Herrlich wrote:

>I wasn't aware that Vinge had been involved for so
>long (I thought '93 was his debut)

He foreshadowed the Singularity in his fiction in the early 1980s, 
but actually posited it (and dramatized its advent) *using that term* 
in a remarkable sf novel, MAROONED IN REALTIME, in 1986. He and 
others subsequently tracked back both the idea of exponential 
technological change to von Neumann, Good, and others--in THE SPIKE, 
which lists these predecessors, I cite an over-excited 1961 article 
by G. Harry Stine--but Vinge's vivid and iconic representation of the 
Singularity was the seed around which subsequent arguments developed.

Here's a minor throwaway image from that novel:

"They were famous pictures: Death on a Bicycle, Death Visits the 
Amusement Park.... They'd been a fad in the 2050s, at the time of the 
longevity breakthrough, when people realized that but for accidents 
and violence, they could live forever. Death was suddenly a pleasant 
old man, freed from his longtime burden. He rolled awkwardly along on 
his first bicycle ride, his scythe sticking up like a flag. Children 
ran beside him, smiling and laughing."
                    (Vernor Vinge, Marooned in Realtime)

Damien Broderick





From mmbutler at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 09:47:27 2007
From: mmbutler at gmail.com (Michael M. Butler)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 09:47:27 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Vingeana, was Re:  "traditional (Kurzweilian) progress"
Message-ID: <7d79ed890706010947u6282b12dqf698d1efa65971b9@mail.gmail.com>

On 6/1/07, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
<snippage>

For a while thereafter, "Death on a Bicycle!" became one of my
favorite oaths. Indeed, in the recent circumstance (thread), would
have been more felicitous than "For the luvva dog"... :)

I imagine him on a bike with a frame far too small for him, with
either a vertical "trick" front post or a "stingray" big banana seat
out of the '70s. Perhaps both. Something to make him have to work for
his fun--he deserves that.

-- 
      Michael M. Butler  :  m m b u t l e r  ( a t )  g m a i l . c o m

From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jun  1 09:48:46 2007
From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 09:48:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Hitchens on fox
In-Reply-To: <20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <200706011648.l51GmQM9010999@andromeda.ziaspace.com>



Check it out: Christopher Hitchens on Fox saying god is not great:

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/player06.html?060107/060107_ff_hitchens&FOX_Fr
iends&%27God%20Is%20Not%20Great%27&%27God%20Is%20Not%20Great%27&US&-1&News&3
9&&&new

spike






From CHealey at unicom-inc.com  Fri Jun  1 09:58:00 2007
From: CHealey at unicom-inc.com (Christopher Healey)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 12:58:00 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <f21c22e30706010637x808ded8v81fffb5d610c1556@mail.gmail.com>
References: <065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><06a601c7a31e$32c11710$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com><070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com><20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org><f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com><20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org><f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com><20070601124421.GI17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010637x808ded8v81fffb5d610c1556@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5725663BF245FA4EBDC03E405C854296010D27F7@w2k3exch.UNICOM-INC.CORP>

> Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> 
> It seems a sorry state of affairs if we can't copy the behaviour 
> of a few protein molecules, and yet are talking about super-human 
> AI taking over the world. 

I used to feel this way, but then a particular analogy popped into my
head that clarified things a bit:

Why would I save for retirement today if it's not going to happen for
another 35 years or so?  I don't know what situation I'll be in then, so
why worry about it today?

Well, luckily I can leverage the experience of those who *have*
successfully retired.  And most of those who have done so don't tell me
that they built and sold a private business for millions of dollars.
What they tell me is that they planned and executed on a 40-year prior
chain of events (yes, even those that have built and sold companies say
this first).

And the first year they saved for retirement, 40 years ago?  That didn't
give them an extra $5000 saved, even though that's all they put away in
year one.  What it gained them was an extra year of compounding results
tacked onto the tail-end of a 39 year interval.  It got them roughly
$50,000 more.  Not bad for one extra year's advanced planning and $5000.
(This is assuming about $100/wk deposit at 5% APR compounded monthly,
starting 1 year apart.)

With AGI we don't have the benefit of experience, but I think it's
prudent to analyze potential classes of outcomes thoroughly before
someone has committed to actualizing that risk.  The Los Alamos
scientists didn't think it was likely that a nuke would ignite the
atmosphere, but they still ran the best calculations they could come up
with beforehand, just in case.  And starting sooner, rather than later,
often results in achieving a deeper understanding of the nature of the
problems themselves, things we haven't even identified as potential
issues today.  

I believe that's the real reason to worry about it now: not because
we're in a position to solve the problem of FAI, but because without
further exploration we won't even be able to state the full scope of the
problem we're trying to solve.  The reality is that until you actively
discover which requirements are necessary to solve a particular problem,
you can't architect a design that has a very good chance of working at
all, let alone avoids the generation of multiple side-effects.  So you
can do what evolution does and iterate through many implementations, at
huge cost and with even larger potential losses (considering that *we*
share that implementation environment), or you can iterate in your
design process, gradually constraining things into a space to where only
a few full implementations (or one) need to be implemented.  And it is
reflection on this design-side iteration looping which can help identify
new concerns that require additional design criteria and associated
mechanism to accommodate.

I guess my main position is that if we can use our intelligence to avoid
making expensive mistakes down the road, doesn't it make sense to try?
We might not be able to avoid those unknown mistakes *today*, but if we
can discern some general categories and follow those insights where they
might lead, then our perceptual abilities will slowly start to ratchet
forward into new areas.  We'll have a larger set of tools with which to
probe reality, and just maybe at some point during this process the
solution will become obvious, or at least tractable.

I agree with you in that this course isn't intuitively obvious to me,
but I think this is because my intuitions discount the future in
degenerate ways, based on the fact that the scope for these kind of
issues was not a major factor in the EEA.  This is one of those topics
on which I try and look past my intuitions, because while they quite
often have some wisdom to offer, sometimes they're just plain wrong.

-Chris Healey



From austriaaugust at yahoo.com  Fri Jun  1 11:41:25 2007
From: austriaaugust at yahoo.com (A B)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 11:41:25 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <8d71341e0706010825t5d73eaack16fa8a4660651e1f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <871650.52790.qm@web37409.mail.mud.yahoo.com>


Chris Healey wrote:

..."I believe that's the real reason to worry about it
now: not because
we're in a position to solve the problem of FAI, but
because without
further exploration we won't even be able to state the
full scope of the
problem we're trying to solve.  The reality is that
until you actively
discover which requirements are necessary to solve a
particular problem,
you can't architect a design that has a very good
chance of working at
all, let alone avoids the generation of multiple
side-effects.  So you
can do what evolution does and iterate through many
implementations, at
huge cost and with even larger potential losses
(considering that *we*
share that implementation environment), or you can
iterate in your
design process, gradually constraining things into a
space to where only
a few full implementations (or one) need to be
implemented.  And it is
reflection on this design-side iteration looping which
can help identify
new concerns that require additional design criteria
and associated
mechanism to accommodate."...

Exactly. The time we have is our best advantage. We've
probably got *at least* 15 to 20 years before the AGI
would be outside our control - they will probably
first emerge with animal-level intelligence. If you
think about it, the actual semi-advanced animals
running around already have the prerequisites:
consciousness, and general-intelligence. Knowledge of
Friendly AI strategies could advance *a lot* during
that phase, so that by the time a new project is in
position to build a human-level AGI 20 years down the
road, the Friendlliness difficulty could well be
solved. It's just another example of using technology
to improve technology. I think that SIAI will continue
to become more of a positive focal point as the
implications become more and more apparent to people.

Best,

Jeffrey Herrlich 



       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! oneSearch: Finally, mobile search 
that gives answers, not web links. 
http://mobile.yahoo.com/mobileweb/onesearch?refer=1ONXIC

From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jun  1 12:22:39 2007
From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 12:22:39 -0700
Subject: [ExI] walking bees
In-Reply-To: <200706011619.l51GJfxM016065@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <200706011924.l51JOuCU024653@andromeda.ziaspace.com>


Perhaps you have read of the collapsing bee colony issue that surfaced last
year in the states and is now being reported in Europe.  Here are a couple
of good articles on it:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070423113425.htm

http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/15/bee-colony-collapse-disorder-where-is
-it-heading/

The possible explanations include new nicotine based pesticides and GM
crops, etc.

In the past few weeks I have seen something I do not recall seeing before:
distressed bees walking along the ground, apparently unable to fly.  A
couple weeks ago I saw one and noted that it was the fourth I had seen in
the past month.  

This morning I saw a fifth and stopped to watch for a few minutes.  She
staggered about, occasionally batting her wings to no avail.  I hassled her,
but she could not fly or take defensive action.  Several times she fell
over, sometimes on her side, a couple times on her back, clearly struggling.
I carefully picked her up and carried her a few blocks to my home.  I put
her in a specimen jar still alive, but she perished within about an hour.

As the beekeepers and entomologists ponder this, I wondered if it would be
any help if urban dwellers would collect specimens like this one.  Would
that data point tell them anything?  They mostly study farm bees, but what
about their city cousins?

ExIers, have you seen walking or dead bees on your daily walks?  I know from
my work as a beekeeper in my misspent youth that bees seldom sting in self
defense, so it is likely you can take one home for study should you see one.
(If you have never had a bee sting and don't know if you are allergic, don't
fool with this.  I would hate to feel responsible for slaying a friend.)  If
we can get sick bees home to study, could we learn anything?  I am thinking
of trying to dissect this one to look for tracheal mites.  Could we offer to
send the urban bees to a central study place?  Ideas?

spike


 



From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jun  1 12:34:25 2007
From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 12:34:25 -0700
Subject: [ExI] walking bees
In-Reply-To: <200706011924.l51JOuCU024653@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <200706011934.l51JYBBd022313@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

What just happened is really weird.  I had just finished posting about sick
bees and was going to go out to finish my interrupted walk, when I noticed a
bee half flying, mostly running into things in my kitchen.  I assumed my
previously collected specimen had revived and flown, since I had removed the
lid to peer at her.  I captured the kitchen bee to return her to the jar and
found the original bee still there, dead as ever.

The second bee is very much alive, but wasn't really flying.  She appears
distressed.  So I guess I now count her as distressed bee number six.

I collected her at 1225, so we will see if she expires soon.

Here's a more recent article than the previous two:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070511210207.htm

spike


> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike
...
> Subject: [ExI] walking bees
> 
> 
> Perhaps you have read of the collapsing bee colony issue that surfaced
> last
> year in the states and is now being reported in Europe.  Here are a couple
> of good articles on it:
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070423113425.htm
> 
> http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/15/bee-colony-collapse-disorder-where-
> is
> -it-heading/
...
> spike





From neville_06 at yahoo.com  Fri Jun  1 12:53:02 2007
From: neville_06 at yahoo.com (neville late)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 12:53:02 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future
In-Reply-To: <465F8B72.3070103@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <621544.83244.qm@web57511.mail.re1.yahoo.com>

Having signed up to be cryonically suspended i wonder if future beings will reanimate humans to torture them in perpetua. The likelihood of such might be small, but just say there's a .001 risk of eating a certain food and going into convulsions lasting years-- would i eat that food? No.
   I signed up to be suspended anyway yet always wonder about the direst of reanimation possibilities seeing as how we live in a multiverse not a universe, and all possibilities are conceivable. Though the risk is very small if one loses the odds and is tortured forever, death would seem like a wonderful priceless gift. 
  
 

 
---------------------------------
Don't be flakey. Get Yahoo! Mail for Mobile and 
always stay connected to friends.
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From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jun  1 13:42:22 2007
From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 13:42:22 -0700
Subject: [ExI] walking bees
In-Reply-To: <200706011934.l51JYBBd022313@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <200706012042.l51Kg9ng012558@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike
> Subject: Re: [ExI] walking bees
> 
> What just happened is really weird.  I had just finished posting about
> sick
> bees and was going to go out to finish my interrupted walk, when I noticed
> a
> bee half flying, mostly running into things in my kitchen...
> spike

Apologies for my chatter on a subject not directly related to transhumanism.

I just returned from a walk, on which I discovered yet another bee which had
apparently perished very recently, for the ants had not arrived.  The ants
usually take only minutes to discover and commence devouring latest expired
bug.

OK that's seven.  I brought this one home as well.  Upon placing this one
into a specimen jar, I noted that the second bee, captured in my kitchen at
about 1225, had expired by 1330.  It was distressed but lively upon capture,
able to fly after a fashion but not out of ground effect.

On my walk I noticed that my lavender plants have a few bees but not nearly
the usual buzz load for this time of year.

What is going on here?

In regards to my first sentence, perhaps this is directly related to
transhumanism in a sense, for if our bee colonies collapse, we need to find
or develop alternate food sources quickly.

spike







From joseph at josephbloch.com  Fri Jun  1 13:49:59 2007
From: joseph at josephbloch.com (Joseph Bloch)
Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 16:49:59 -0400
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future
In-Reply-To: <621544.83244.qm@web57511.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
References: <465F8B72.3070103@comcast.net>
	<621544.83244.qm@web57511.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <017001c7a48e$6c4d1210$6400a8c0@hypotenuse.com>

Why would your hypothetical future beings reanimate human beings for such a
purpose? Surely it would be easier to simply breed them. 
 
I don't see how your concern applies to cryonics in particular. If you think
it's at all likely (and I do not), surely it would apply to already-living
people before those in need of revivification, purely from the standpoint of
efficiency.
 
Joseph
http://www.josephbloch.com
 
 


  _____  

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of neville late
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 3:53 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future


Having signed up to be cryonically suspended i wonder if future beings will
reanimate humans to torture them in perpetua. The likelihood of such might
be small, but just say there's a .001 risk of eating a certain food and
going into convulsions lasting years-- would i eat that food? No.
 I signed up to be suspended anyway yet always wonder about the direst of
reanimation possibilities seeing as how we live in a multiverse not a
universe, and all possibilities are conceivable. Though the risk is very
small if one loses the odds and is tortured forever, death would seem like a
wonderful priceless gift. 

 



  _____  

Don't be flakey. Get
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=43909/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/mail> Yahoo! Mail
for Mobile and 
always  <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=43909/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/mail>
stay connected to friends.

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From kevin at kevinfreels.com  Fri Jun  1 15:07:57 2007
From: kevin at kevinfreels.com (kevin at kevinfreels.com)
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:07:57 -0700
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future
Message-ID: <20070601150757.38f036b76284185e041b1b237c97abe6.e634d0daf0.wbe@email.secureserver.net>

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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 16:16:49 2007
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 00:16:49 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Language: Coincidence
In-Reply-To: <785287.98804.qm@web37214.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <785287.98804.qm@web37214.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <ee50357e0706011616j18321ea4m9c882af587f3303f@mail.gmail.com>

On 5/30/07, Anna Taylor wrote:
> I'm trying to understand the correlation between
> awareness and coincidence.
>
> The latin word for coincidence is "in, with, together
> to fall on".  Wiki's first defined statement is the
> noteworthy alignment of two or more circumstances
> "without" obvious causal connection.  How is that
> possible?  Why would it be noteworthy if there wasn't
> a causal connection? I'm trying to understand
> "coincidence" better and would like some help on this
> issue if anybody has some free time.  Any ideas,
> theories or suggestions of the correlation above would
> also be appreciated.
>

You might like this:
<http://www.oddee.com/item_82923.aspx>

20 Most Amazing Coincidences

For example ------

No 17.  A writer, found the book of her childhood
While American novelist Anne Parrish was browsing bookstores in Paris
in the 1920s, she came upon a book that was one of her childhood
favorites - Jack Frost and Other Stories. She picked up the old book
and showed it to her husband, telling him of the book she fondly
remembered as a child. Her husband took the book, opened it, and on
the flyleaf found the inscription: "Anne Parrish, 209 N. Weber Street,
Colorado Springs." It was Anne's very own book. (Source: While Rome
Burns, Alexander Wollcott)



BillK

From thespike at satx.rr.com  Fri Jun  1 16:33:28 2007
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:33:28 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Language: Coincidence
In-Reply-To: <ee50357e0706011616j18321ea4m9c882af587f3303f@mail.gmail.co
 m>
References: <785287.98804.qm@web37214.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<ee50357e0706011616j18321ea4m9c882af587f3303f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20070601183123.023e3238@satx.rr.com>

At 12:16 AM 6/2/2007 +0100, BillK wrote:

>You might like this:
><http://www.oddee.com/item_82923.aspx>

I certainly liked this one:

<Henry Ziegland thought he had dodged fate. In 1883, he broke off a 
relationship with his girlfriend who, out of distress, committed 
suicide. The girl's brother was so enraged that he hunted down 
Ziegland and shot him. The brother, believing he had killed Ziegland, 
then turned his gun on himself and took his own life. But Ziegland 
had not been killed. The bullet, in fact, had only grazed his face 
and then lodged in a tree. Ziegland surely thought himself a lucky 
man. Some years later, however, Ziegland decided to cut down the 
large tree, which still had the bullet in it. The task seemed so 
formidable that he decided to blow it up with a few sticks of 
dynamite. The explosion propelled the bullet into Ziegland's head, 
killing him. (Source: Ripley's Believe It or Not!) >

And some people try pathetically to deny a Power Greater Than 
Ourselves that rules our lives!

Damien Broderick 


From stathisp at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 22:44:24 2007
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 15:44:24 +1000
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <5725663BF245FA4EBDC03E405C854296010D27DE@w2k3exch.UNICOM-INC.CORP>
References: <002901c7a1f5$c10a5dd0$21074e0c@MyComputer>
	<06a601c7a31e$32c11710$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
	<5725663BF245FA4EBDC03E405C854296010D27DE@w2k3exch.UNICOM-INC.CORP>
Message-ID: <f21c22e30706012244y6722882dn9b12787c69092f5b@mail.gmail.com>

On 02/06/07, Christopher Healey <CHealey at unicom-inc.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> >
> > We don't have human level AI, but we have lots of dumb AI. In
> > nature, dumb organisms are no less inclined to try to take over
> > than smarter organisms
>
> Yes, but motivation and competence are not the same thing.  Considering
> two organisms that are equivalent in functional capability, varying only
> intelligence level, the smarter ones succeed more often. However, within
> a small range of intelligence variation, other factors contribute to
> one's aggregate ability to execute those better plans.   So If I'm a
> smart chimpanzee, but I'm physically weak, following particular courses
> of action that may be more optimal in general carries greater risk.
> Adjusting for that risk may actually leave me with a smaller range of
> options than if I was physically stronger and a bit less smart.  But
> when intelligence differential is large, those other factors become very
> small indeed.  Humans don't worry about chimpanzee politics (no jokes
> here please :o) because our only salient competition is other humans.
> We worry about those entities that possess an intelligence that is at
> least in the same range as our own.


We worry about viruses and bacteria, and they're not very smart. We worry
about giant meteorites that might be heading our way, and they're even
dumber than viruses and bacteria.

Smart chimpanzees are not going to take over our civilization anytime
> soon, but a smarter and otherwise well-adapted chimp will probably be
> inclined and succeed in leading its band of peers.


All else being equal, which is not generally the case.

> (and no less capable of succeeding, as a
> > general rule, but leave that point for the sake of argument).
>
> I don't want to leave it, because this is a critical point.  As I
> mentioned above, in nature you rarely see intelligence considered as an
> isolated variable, and in evolution, intelligence is the product of a
> red queen race.  By definition (of a red queen race), you're
> intelligence isn't going to be radically different from your direct
> competition, or the race would never have started or escalated.  So it
> confusingly might not look like you're chances of beating "the Whiz on
> the block" are that disproportionate, but the context is so narrow that
> other factors can overwhelm the effect of intelligence over that limited
> range.  In some sense, our experiential day-to-day understanding of
> intelligence (other humans) biases us to consider its effects over too
> narrow a range of values.  As a general rule, I'd say humans have been
> very much more successful at "taking over" than chimpanzees and salmon,
> and that it is primarily due to our superior intelligence.


Single-celled organisms are even more successful than humans are: they're
everywhere, and for the most part we don't even notice them. Intelligence,
particularly human level intelligence, is just a fluke, like the giraffe's
neck. If it were specially adaptive, why didn't it evolve independently many
times, like various sense organs have? Why don't we see evidence of it
having taken over the universe? We would have to be extraordinarily lucky if
intelligence had some special role in evolution and we happen to be the
first example of it. It's not impossible, but the evidence would suggest
otherwise.

> Given that dumb AI doesn't try to take over, why should smart AI
> > be more inclined to do so?
>
> I don't think a smart AI would be more inclined to try and take over, a
> priori.


That's an important point. Some people on this list seem to think that an AI
would compute the unfairness of its not being in charge and do something
about it - as if unfairness is something that can be formalised in a
mathematical theorem.

> And why should that segment of smart
> > AI which might try to do so, whether spontaneously or by malicious
> > design, be more successful than all the other AI, which maintains
> > its ancestral motivation to work and improve itself for humans
>
> The consideration that also needs to be addressed is that the AI may
> maintain its "motivation to work and improve itself for humans", and due
> to this motivation, take over (in some sense at least).  In fact, it has
> been argued by others here (and I tend to agree) that an AGI
> *consistently* pursuing such benign directives must intercede where its
> causal understanding of certain outcomes passes a minimum assurance
> level (which would likely vary based on probability and magnitude of the
> outcome).


I'd feel uncomfortable about an AI that had any feelings or motivations of
its own, even if they were positive ones about humans, especially if it had
the ability to act rather than just advise. It might decide that it had to
keep me locked up for my own good, for example, even though I don't want to
be locked up. I'd feel much safer around an AI which informs me that, using
its greatly superior intelligence, it has determined that I am less likely
to be run over if I never leave home, but what I do with this advice is a
matter of complete indifference to it. So although through accident or
design an AI with motivations and feelings might arise, I think by far the
safest ones, and the ones likely to sell better, will be those with the
minimal motivation set of the disinterested scientist, concerned only with
solving intellectual problems.



-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From stathisp at gmail.com  Fri Jun  1 22:50:11 2007
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 15:50:11 +1000
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60706010749x719f31achcf45457d46cb6ed1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <065701c7a261$b155b4e0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601124421.GI17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010637x808ded8v81fffb5d610c1556@mail.gmail.com>
	<7641ddc60706010749x719f31achcf45457d46cb6ed1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f21c22e30706012250x3df2b074k1e421b5cc9f86bf3@mail.gmail.com>

On 02/06/07, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:

Of course there are many dumb programs that multiply and mutate to
> successfully take over computing resources. Even as early as the
> seventies there were already some examples, like the "Core Wars"
> simulations. As Eugen says, the internet is now an ecosystem, with
> niches that can be filled by appropriately adapted programs. So far
> successfully propagating programs are generated by programmers, and
> existing AI is still not at our level of general understanding of the
> world but the pace of AI improvement is impressive.


Computer viruses don't mutate and come up with agendas of their own, like
biological agents do. It can't be because they aren't smart enough because
real viruses and other micro-organisms can hardly be said to have any
general intelligence, and yet they do often defeat the best efforts of much
smarter organisms. I can't see any reason in principle why artificial life
or intelligence should not behave in a similar way, but it's interesting
that it hasn't yet happened.

> Whenever we have true AI, there will be those which follow their legacy
> > programming (as we do, whether we want to or not) and those which either
> > spontaneously mutate or are deliberately created to be malicious towards
> > humans. Why should the malicious ones have a competitive advantage over
> the
> > non-malicious ones, which are likely to be more numerous and better
> funded
> > to begin with?
>
> ### Because the malicious can eat humans, while the nice ones have to
> feed humans, and protect them from being eaten, and still eat
> something to be strong enough to fight off the bad ones. In other
> words, nice AI will have to carry a lot of inert baggage.


I don't see how that would help in any particular situation. When it comes
to taking control of a power plant, for example, why should the ultimate
motivation of two otherwise equally matched agents make a difference? Also,
you can't always break up the components of a system and identify them as
competing agents. A human body is a society of cooperating components, and
even though in theory the gut epithelial cells would be better off if they
revolted and consumed the rest of the body, in practice they are better off
if they continue in their normal subservient function. There would be a big
payoff for a colony of cancer cells that evolved the ability to make its own
way in the world, but it has never happened.

And by "eating" I mean literally the destruction of humans bodies,
> e.g. by molecular disassembly.
>
> --------------------
> Of course, it is always possible that an individual AI would
> > spontaneously change its programming, just as it is always possible that
> a
> > human will go mad.
>
> ### A human who goes mad (i.e. rejects his survival programming),
> dies. An AI that goes rogue, has just shed a whole load of inert
> baggage.


You could argue that cooperation in any form is inert baggage, and if the
right half of the AI evolved the ability to take over the left half, the
right half would predominate. Where does it end?


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com  Sat Jun  2 02:05:03 2007
From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 02:05:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] walking bees
In-Reply-To: <200706012042.l51Kg9ng012558@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <167551.16503.qm@web60520.mail.yahoo.com>


--- spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> What is going on here?
> 
> In regards to my first sentence, perhaps this is
> directly related to
> transhumanism in a sense, for if our bee colonies
> collapse, we need to find
> or develop alternate food sources quickly.

I find this topic perfectly appropriate with regards
to a transhumanist list. Colony collapse disorder is
most certainly an existential risk due to our high
reliance on the honey bee for pollination. Something I
noticed when I moved up here to Olympia, WA, is that
spookily there are no honeybees to be found. All the
bees buzzing around here are bumblebees and mason
bees.

Unfortunately, I don't know how quickly these
alternative pollinators can pick up the slack, since
for years we have been crowding them out with our
inbred domesticated bee strains.

CCD is quite a puzzle. There are about half a dozen
theories floating around but some are more feasible
than others. But the "experts" are stumped so its time
for us to step up.  Global warming, pesticides, GM
crop pollen, and radiation (cell phone or UV) seem
unlikely reasons to me. They don't jibe with some very
important clues:

1. Epidemiological pattern suggestive of a parasite or
pathogen as an etiological agent. After all global
warming and the rest of these proposed causes do not
spread from state to state.

2. The bees die AWAY from the hive. If it was
pesticides, global warming, etc. you would expect a
more even distribution with dead bees being found in
the hive as well as outside of it. But so far only the
*foragers* outside of the hive are dying.

3. Organic bees, feral bees, and closely related
species of bees are not dying. Again some large scale
environmental phenomenon should affect all the bees.
Not just the industrially farmed ones.

So my spidey or rather bee-sense tells me that the
culprit is the tracheal mites with possible secondary
infections caused by stress as a minor factor.

Mite infestations would spread in an epidemilogical
pattern as observed. Secondly, in-bred domestic
strains would be more susceptible to mite infestations
as well as secondary infections/infestations due to
insufficient natural diversity in host defenses. They
are also more susceptible due to their larger size.
Domestic honeybees are about 1.5X larger than their
organic and feral counterparts.

http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/05/15/organic-bees-surviving-colony-collapse-disorder-ccd/

This translates into organic and feral bees having
smaller honeycomb cells that take shorter times to
cap, allowing fewer mites to get into them. It also as
the article above fails to mention, make it easier for
the bee to breathe due to better scaling of surface
area of the trachea to the volume/mass of the bee.

Thus my hypothesis is that the bees are dying of
lactic acid poisoning due to hypoxia. That is to say
they are suffocating due to clogged airways and more
body mass relative to their seemingly mite-resistant
wild counterparts.

This also makes sense in light of clue #2, that bees
are only dying while foraging outside of the hive. It
takes far more oxygen to fly around in search of food
than it does to walk around inside of the hive. It
would also explain why you see the bees "walking",
Spike. They fly away from the hive but the build up of
lactic acid due to oxygen debt makes it so they can't
fly back. So they become pedestrians.

Of course this is still just a hypthesis that needs to
be tested. Since there are no honeybees at all where I
now live to conduct an experiment and since you have a
penchant for collecting the walking bees in jars any
way, Spike, I need you help for this one. Here is the
experiment that needs to be performed:

You need to see if higher oxygen pressure will
resuscitate your walking bees, Spike. The easiest way
to do this from the comfort of your home is to
construct a jar with a screen or something similar
part way down to keep the bees from falling into the
liquid in the bottom of the jar and drowning. Make it
so that you can still fit an airtight lid on the jar.

You will need to generate the oxygen gas chemically.
The best way to do this is to:

1. Pour some chlorox bleach into the jar and put the
screen in.

2. Put a "walking bee" on the screen toward one side
of the jar.

3. Pour a roughly equal volume of hydrogen peroxide
through the screen on the opposite side from where the
bee is. The chemical reaction should immediately start
to fizz. The bubbles are pure oxygen.

4. Try to get the lid onto the jar before the fizzing
stops.

5. Observe the bee, take notes and photographs.

If the bees seem to get better in your homemade
hyperbaric oxygen chamber, then my hypothesis is right
and we get to publish our results. I think it only
fair that we share credit equally. Please make sure
there are no sparks or flames nearby when you mix the
bleach and hydrogen peroxide.

So are you interested? :-)


Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"When an old man dies, an entire library is destroyed." - Ugandan proverb


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Shape Yahoo! in your own image.  Join our Network Research Panel today!   http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7 



From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Jun  2 03:35:34 2007
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 11:35:34 +0100
Subject: [ExI] walking bees
In-Reply-To: <167551.16503.qm@web60520.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <200706012042.l51Kg9ng012558@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<167551.16503.qm@web60520.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <ee50357e0706020335sb90ffabx3c3d5c33b8aa9aa1@mail.gmail.com>

On 6/2/07, The Avantguardian wrote:
>
> I find this topic perfectly appropriate with regards
> to a transhumanist list. Colony collapse disorder is
> most certainly an existential risk due to our high
> reliance on the honey bee for pollination. Something I
> noticed when I moved up here to Olympia, WA, is that
> spookily there are no honeybees to be found. All the
> bees buzzing around here are bumblebees and mason
> bees.
>
> Unfortunately, I don't know how quickly these
> alternative pollinators can pick up the slack, since
> for years we have been crowding them out with our
> inbred domesticated bee strains.
>
> CCD is quite a puzzle. There are about half a dozen
> theories floating around but some are more feasible
> than others. But the "experts" are stumped so its time
> for us to step up.  Global warming, pesticides, GM
> crop pollen, and radiation (cell phone or UV) seem
> unlikely reasons to me. They don't jibe with some very
> important clues:
>

I'm not a bee expert, but as you say there is plenty of speculation
around among the beekeepers.

One point is that beekeepers expect to lose hives every winter. This is normal.
But total losses are up to five times normal levels. CCD is only a
part of the problem.

Losses due to mite infestation are also common, but the bees die in
the hives. And there is increased occurrence of this also.

<http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=2010>
Quote:
The volunteer beekeeper hopes the new hives can survive three plagues
decimating the world's honeybee population: parasitic mites, bacterial
infections, and the mysterious phenomenon known as Colony Collapse
Disorder, discovered last year. The center's attempts to keep outdoor
hives failed repeatedly between 1996 and 2002, said Rye city
naturalist Chantal Detlefs, mainly due to mite infestations.

He suspected something was wrong in January, when he noticed his bees
weren't leaving their hives on the unseasonably warm days. He found
four of the colonies dead inside their boxes - probably from mites, he
said - but four others apparently succumbed to Colony Collapse
Disorder.

"The hives are full of honey and there was a queen and a few bees in
there, but the rest disappeared," he said, noting that no other bees
have gone near the fully stocked hive, either.

But even without Colony Collapse Disorder, which has not yet had a
significant impact on the Lower Hudson Valley, beekeepers still battle
resistant mites and bacteria, as well as cheap honey flowing from
China and other countries.

"If (CCD) is cured tomorrow, the bee industry would still be operating
in crisis mode," Calderone said. "They've kind of got it coming at
them from a number of different directions."

Hauk, who said his natural methods have kept winter colony losses to a
15 percent average over 10 years, compared with the 40 percent
reported by commercial beekeepers, opposes the use of pesticides,
herbicides and fungicides, along with taking too much honey from the
hives.

"The bees have been terribly exploited, trucked around, all their
honey taken. It's not surprising that their immune system is breaking
down rapidly," he said. "We are in serious trouble. The bee is not a
being that should be commercialized."

----------------------------


See - it's all the fault of the free market exploitation!   ;)


BillK

From eugen at leitl.org  Sat Jun  2 04:21:07 2007
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 13:21:07 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <f21c22e30706012250x3df2b074k1e421b5cc9f86bf3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070601124421.GI17691@leitl.org>
	<f21c22e30706010637x808ded8v81fffb5d610c1556@mail.gmail.com>
	<7641ddc60706010749x719f31achcf45457d46cb6ed1@mail.gmail.com>
	<f21c22e30706012250x3df2b074k1e421b5cc9f86bf3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20070602112107.GH17691@leitl.org>

On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 03:50:11PM +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

>    Computer viruses don't mutate and come up with agendas of their own,

Actually they used to (polymorphic viruses), but do no longer.
The hypervariability was quite useful to evade pattern-matcher
artificial immune systems.

But the actual reasons computer code doesn't mutate it's because
it's brittle. It's lacking criticial features of fitness of darwinian
systems, namely long-distance neutral-fitness filaments and maximum
diversity in a small ball of genome space. 

Biology spend some quality evolution time learning to evolve, human
systems never had the chance. But it's not magic, so at some point
we will design robustly evolving systems.

>    like biological agents do. It can't be because they aren't smart
>    enough because real viruses and other micro-organisms can hardly be

Evolution is not about smarts, just ability to evolve. It's a system
feature though.

>    said to have any general intelligence, and yet they do often defeat
>    the best efforts of much smarter organisms. I can't see any reason in
>    principle why artificial life or intelligence should not behave in a
>    similar way, but it's interesting that it hasn't yet happened.

It's rather straightforward to do. You need to spend a lot of time on
coding/substrate co-evolution, which would currently require a very large
amount of computation time. I doubt we have enough hardware online right
now to make it happen. Sometime in the next coming decades we will, though.
 
>    I don't see how that would help in any particular situation. When it
>    comes to taking control of a power plant, for example, why should the

Where is the power plant of a green plant, or of a bug? It's a nanowidget 
called a chloroplast or mitochondrion. You don't take control of it, because
you already control it.

>    ultimate motivation of two otherwise equally matched agents make a
>    difference? Also, you can't always break up the components of a system
>    and identify them as competing agents. A human body is a society of

Cooperation and competition is a continuum. Many symbiontes started out
as pathogens, and many current symbiontes will turn pathogens when
given half a chance, and some symbiontes will turn to pathogens (I can't
think of an example right now, though).

>    cooperating components, and even though in theory the gut epithelial
>    cells would be better off if they revolted and consumed the rest of

Sometimes, they do. It's called cancer. And if you've ever seen what your
gut flora does, when it realizes the host might expire soon...

>    the body, in practice they are better off if they continue in their
>    normal subservient function. There would be a big payoff for a colony
>    of cancer cells that evolved the ability to make its own way in the
>    world, but it has never happened.

There's apparently an infectious form of cancer in organisms with low
immune variability (some marsupials, and apparently there are hints for
dogs, too).
 
>    You could argue that cooperation in any form is inert baggage, and if

Cooperation is just great, assuming you have a high probability to encounter
the party in the next interaction round, and can tell which is which.
In practice, for higher forms of cooperation you need a lot of infoprocessing
power onboard.

>    the right half of the AI evolved the ability to take over the left
>    half, the right half would predominate. Where does it end?

In principle subsystems can go AWOL and produce a runaway autoamplification.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From stathisp at gmail.com  Sat Jun  2 05:51:37 2007
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 22:51:37 +1000
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future
In-Reply-To: <621544.83244.qm@web57511.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
References: <465F8B72.3070103@comcast.net>
	<621544.83244.qm@web57511.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <f21c22e30706020551g4c20d0e6q8bfea3237e4ba360@mail.gmail.com>

On 02/06/07, neville late <neville_06 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Having signed up to be cryonically suspended i wonder if future beings
> will reanimate humans to torture them in perpetua. The likelihood of such
> might be small, but just say there's a .001 risk of eating a certain food
> and going into convulsions lasting years-- would i eat that food? No.
>  I signed up to be suspended anyway yet always wonder about the direst of
> reanimation possibilities seeing as how we live in a multiverse not a
> universe, and all possibilities are conceivable. Though the risk is very
> small if one loses the odds and is tortured forever, death would seem like a
> wonderful priceless gift.
>

The multiverse idea on its own would seem to imply the possibility of
eternal torture, because it isn't possible to die. If you are involved in an
accident, for example, in some universes you will die, in some universes you
will escape unhurt, and in some universes you will live but be seriously and
permanently injured. Let's say there is a 1/3 probability of each of these
things happening: that means that subjectively, you have a 1/2 chance of
finding yourself seriously injured, because you don't experience those
universes in which you die. As you go through life, you come to multiple
such branching points where there is a 1/2 subjective chance that you will
survive but be seriously injured. Eventually, the probability that you will
be seriously injured approaches 1, since the probability that you will
survive n accidents unharmed is 1/2^n and approaches zero as n approaches
infinity. There is no way you can escape this terrible fate, since even
trying to kill yourself will at best have no subjective effect, at worst
contribute to your misery when you find yourself alive but in pain after a
botched suicide attempt.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jun  2 08:28:34 2007
From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 08:28:34 -0700
Subject: [ExI] walking bees
In-Reply-To: <167551.16503.qm@web60520.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200706021552.l52FqLgT006450@andromeda.ziaspace.com>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of The Avantguardian
> Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2007 2:05 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [ExI] walking bees
> 
> 
> --- spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > What is going on here?
> >
> > ...
> 
> You will need to generate the oxygen gas chemically.
> The best way to do this is to:
...
> If the bees seem to get better in your homemade
> hyperbaric oxygen chamber, then my hypothesis is right
> and we get to publish our results. I think it only
> fair that we share credit equally. Please make sure
> there are no sparks or flames nearby when you mix the
> bleach and hydrogen peroxide.
> 
> So are you interested? :-)
> 
> 
> Stuart LaForge
> alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu



Coooool!  Thanks Stuart, this is a great idea.  I even have some ideas for
improvement.  I have access to liquid oxygen (an advantage of being a rocket
scientist) so I will get a thermos bottle full of that stuff and use it for
my process control.  I can probably get the partial pressure of oxygen from
the normal 150-ish millimeters to about in the 200 to 300 range while
maintaining 1 atmosphere.

I theorized the bees I found might have tracheal mites, which is why I
brought them home.  I was going to try to dissect these, but my surgical
skills are insufficient I fear.  

Your notion stands to reason however.  I found the eighth bee in my back
yard yesterday, already perished.  I didn't collect that one, because I
wanted to see how long it takes for the ants to completely devour a bee.
They are still working on it, so at least ten hours.

spike








From jonkc at att.net  Sat Jun  2 08:47:02 2007
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 11:47:02 -0400
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future
References: <465F8B72.3070103@comcast.net><621544.83244.qm@web57511.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
	<f21c22e30706020551g4c20d0e6q8bfea3237e4ba360@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004001c7a52d$4c089250$310b4e0c@MyComputer>

Stathis Papaioannou Wrote:

> The multiverse idea on its own would seem to imply the possibility of
> eternal torture, because it isn't possible to die.

Yes.

> you have a 1/2 chance of finding yourself seriously injured

I don't believe that's quite correct. When you reach a branching point like
that there is a 100% chance you will find yourself to be seriously injured
and a 100% chance you will find yourself not be. Both yous would be quite
different from each other but both would have an equal right to be called
you.

> since the probability that you will survive n accidents unharmed is 1/2^n
> and approaches zero as n approaches infinity.

If you're dealing in infinite sets then standard probability theories aren't
much use. If there are an infinite number of universes and for each one
where you will live in bliss there are a million billion trillion where you
will be tortured then there is an equal number of both types of universe.

  John K Clark








From jonkc at att.net  Sat Jun  2 09:29:08 2007
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 12:29:08 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
References: <002901c7a1f5$c10a5dd0$21074e0c@MyComputer><06a601c7a31e$32c11710$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><f21c22e30705310247s65ff0b43vf87b0850446809f8@mail.gmail.com><070901c7a395$8b3f8940$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><f21c22e30705311809s51be497o614592cc031a0483@mail.gmail.com><20070601103345.GE17691@leitl.org><f21c22e30706010423v4eb9d873ne778541279a39ade@mail.gmail.com><20070601113357.GG17691@leitl.org><f21c22e30706010506n1660f6f0gba3db97703e81f85@mail.gmail.com><5725663BF245FA4EBDC03E405C854296010D27DE@w2k3exch.UNICOM-INC.CORP>
	<f21c22e30706012244y6722882dn9b12787c69092f5b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005c01c7a533$2ccf0b70$310b4e0c@MyComputer>

Stathis Papaioannou

> We worry about viruses and bacteria, and they're not very smart. We worry
> about giant meteorites that might be heading our way, and they're even
> dumber than viruses and bacteria.

That is true, and that is one reason I don't think AI will allow stupid
humans to live at the same level of reality as his precious hardware; he's
bound to be a bit squeamish about that, it would be like a monkey running
around an operating room.  If he lets us live it will be in a virtual world
behind a heavy firewall, but that's OK, we'll never know the difference
unless he tells us.

> Intelligence, particularly human level intelligence, is just a fluke

Agreed.

> If it were specially adaptive, why didn't it evolve independently many
> times

Because it's just a fluke, and because intelligence unlike emotion is hard
and Evolution is a slow, crude, idiotic way to make complex things; it's
just that until the invention of brains it was the only way to make complex
things.

> Why don't we see evidence of it having taken over the universe?

Because some disaster we don't understand (drug addiction?) awaits any mind
if it advances beyond a certain point, or because we are the first; somebody
had to be.

> Some people on this list seem to think that an AI would compute the
> unfairness of its not being in charge and do something about it as if
> unfairness is something that can be formalised in a mathematical theorem.

You seem to understand the word "unfairness", did you use a formalized
PROVABLE mathematical theorem to comprehend it? Or perhaps you think meat by
its very nature has more wisdom than silicon. We couldn't be talking about a
soul could we?

  John K Clark







From eugen at leitl.org  Sat Jun  2 11:08:25 2007
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 20:08:25 +0200
Subject: [ExI] walking bees
In-Reply-To: <200706021552.l52FqLgT006450@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <167551.16503.qm@web60520.mail.yahoo.com>
	<200706021552.l52FqLgT006450@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <20070602180825.GW17691@leitl.org>

On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 08:28:34AM -0700, spike wrote:

> I theorized the bees I found might have tracheal mites, which is why I
> brought them home.  I was going to try to dissect these, but my surgical
> skills are insufficient I fear.  

Are you sure it's not Nosema ceranae and not Varroa?

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Sat Jun  2 12:24:47 2007
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 12:24:47 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Liberals and Political Labels (was History of Slavery)
References: <005301c79fff$fda40450$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<op.tszngwymivvpma@shuttle>
	<04f201c7a147$54da96b0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<op.ts19jsoeivvpma@localhost>
	<05b401c7a1ac$dfe48210$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<op.ts3m97l0ivvpma@localhost>
	<06dc01c7a33f$7c244f50$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<op.ts7iqsx3ivvpma@localhost>
Message-ID: <007001c7a54b$cc109ec0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Gordon writes

>>> If anyone deserves credit for freeing the slaves, I'd say it was the
>>> political liberals and the Quakers.
>>
>> Yes.  It's the same "mentality", if you will.
> 
> Yes, the same mentality. Abolitionism has a 'liberal flavor', even though  
> the meaning of the word liberal has changed over time.

The certain writer T.S. has some harsh things to say about
abolitionists, with which I fully concur. He contrasts them
to Burke, for whom he has great admiration. Burke
thoroughly despised the use of "abstract principles" in
treating real world problems.

     Later, Burke proposed "to give property to the Negroes" when they
     should become free. But nowhere did Burke view this as an abstract
     question without considering the social context and the consequnces
     and dangers of that context. He rejected the idea that one could
     simply free the slaves by fiat as amatter of abstract principle,
     since he abhorred abstract principles on political issues in general.
     Thomas Jefferson likewise regarded emancipation, all by itself,
     as being more like abandonment than liberation for people "whose
     habits have been formed in slavery".

     In America, John Randolph of Roanoke took a similar position:
     "I am not going to discuss the abstract question of liberty, or
     slavery, or any other abstract question."

     Today, slavery is too often discussed as an abstract question with
     an easy answer, leading to sweeping condemnations of those who
     did not reach that easy answer in their own time. In nineteenth
     century America, especially, there was no alternative that was
     not traumatic, including both the continuation of slavery [and
     any alternative, as T.S. describes at lenght].

and a few pages earlier T.S. writes

     Quakers, who had spearheaded the anti-slavery movement on
     both sides of the Atlantic, nevertheless distanced themselves
     from the abolitionist movement exemplified by Garrison.

and a bit further back

     Abolitionists were hated in the North as well as the South: 
     William Lloyd Garrison narrowly escaped being lynched
     by a mob in Boston, even though there were no slaveholders
     in Massachusetts, and another abolitionist leader was killed
     by a mob in Illinois. Abolitionists were also targets of mobs
     in New York and Philadelphia...

     None of this was based on any economic interest in the 
     ownership of slaves in states where such ownership had
     been outlawed decades earlier.  But, just as Southerners
     resented dangers to themselves created by distant
     abolitionists, so Northererners resented dangers to the
     Union, with the prospect of a bloody civil war. Even people
     who were openly opposed to slavery were often also
     opposed to the abolitionists....

     ....It was the abolitionists' doctrinaire stances and heedless
     disregard of consequences, both of their policy and their
     rhetoric, which marginalized them, even in the North and
     even among those who were seeking to find ways to phase
     out the institution of slavery, so as to free those being held in
     bondage without unleashing a war between the states or a
     war between the races.  Garrison could say "the question
     of expedience has nothing to do with that of right" --- which
     is true in the abstract, but irrelevant in a world where
     consequences matter.  Too often the abolitionists were
     intolerant of those seeking the same goal of ending slavery
     when those others---including Lincoln---proceeded in ways
     that took account of the inescapable constraints of the times,
     instead of being oblivious [as were the abolitionists] to the
     context and constraints.

This is a revolutionary mind-set that is being described here---
one that surfaced in the French Revolution and the Russian
Revolution, and which it would be libelous to say always
characterizes liberals.  Nonetheless one often hears today
echos of these same kinds of sentiments, when revolution
is advocated over evolution.  The more I read of Burke,
especially exemplified by his far-sighted criticisms of the
ongoing French Revolution, the more respect for his
wisdom I have.

Lee

> Interesting about the progressives, and thanks for your generally  
> interesting post.


From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Sat Jun  2 12:49:14 2007
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 12:49:14 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Italy's Social Capital (was france again)
References: <p06230900c284fe33a388@[23.237.66.13]>
Message-ID: <007401c7a54f$4d249130$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Amara writes

> "Giu1i0 Pri5c0" <pgptag at gmail.com> :
>>As a Southern European I think that our big strength is flexibility
> 
> 
> Regarding the flexibility: I'm very flexible (remember I'm an Italian
> government employee who is also an illegal immigrant), but my
> flexibility is not enough for increasing my productivity for the half of
> my life I spend in queues.
> 
> To have any productivity in this particular country where the
> infrastructure is broken, one _must_ have also the social and
> familial network (to get help from someone who knows
> someone who knows someone who knows someone who
> knows someone ...) Italy does not not run by merit
> (i.e. skills, experience, competence), it runs by who you know.

In the book "Trust" Fukuyama listed among his examples
northern Italy (where trust is high) as opposed to southern Italy
where it isn't. In the book "War and Peace and War", Peter
Turchin describes how southern Italy has never recovered
from the events of the first two centuries A.D. when their
"asabiya" and social capital slowly vanished. Two thousand
years ago!

I cannot help but wonder what long term solutions might be
available to Italians who love their country. My particular,
my focus now is on the Fascist era, and I'm reading a quite
thick but so far quite enjoyable book "Mussolini's Italy".
Even in the movie "Captain Corelli's Mandolin", one
strongly senses that the Fascists were trying as best they
knew how to solve this problem and make the average
Italian develop Fukuyama's "trust" in other Italians, and
develop their social capital (amid the corruption, etc.).

Of course, it hardless needs to be said that the Fascists
were a brutal, repressive, and abominable regime. This
book "Mussolini's Italy" spares nothing here, and was
even described by one reviewer as "unsympathetic". 

Still---given the nearly absolute power the Fascists wielded
for about three decades---wasn't there anything that they
could have done?  That is, instead of trying to foment
patriotism by attempted military victories in Ethiopia
and Libya (a 19th century colony of theirs), wouldn't it have
been somehow possible to divert their resources to more
effectively "homogenizing" Italy in some other way? 

(I must say that as a libertarian, I'd much prefer that everyone
---especially including a small minimal government---mind their
own business.  Here, I'm just considering a theoretical 
question concerning how groups might reaquire their asabiya
and their social capital.)

I have two ideas, only one of which is outrageous. But the first
one is to have universal millitary service for all young people
between ages 14 and 25. By mixing them thoroughly with
Italians from every province, couldn't trust evolve, and in 
such a way that the extreme parochialism of the countryside
could be reduced?  The 25-year-olds could return with
a better attitude to "outsiders" (e.g. other Italians), and
with a much stronger sense of "being Italian" as opposed to
being Calabrian, or just being the member of some clan.

(My outrageous idea is that instead of trying to subdue 
Ethiopia, what if Sicily and other areas of the south could
have been "subdued" instead?  Stalin managed to force the
relocation of huge numbers of people, so couldn't 
Mussolini have done the same?  Clans in the south might
have been broken up into separate northern cities, and
depopulated areas of the south might have been colonized
by force by northern Italians.  Perhaps impracticable, but
at least the goal would have made more sense that getting
into stupid wars.)

Ah, but alas, the history of "social engineering" and "social
planning" doesn't have a very good track record, now,
does it?  But there had to be a *better* program that the
King of Lydia could have pursued with his tremendous
resources than getting into a war with Persia and getting
creamed. Or there had to be a *better* idea for the 
Romans than allowing slavery to supplant their farmers...
And so on.  Is there nothing constructive the Fascists
could have done?

Lee


From natasha at natasha.cc  Sat Jun  2 13:54:01 2007
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 15:54:01 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Post-contemporary art and Cognitive strategies
Message-ID: <200706022054.l52Ks2uZ028784@ms-smtp-03.texas.rr.com>

Can anyone translate this statement by Ant?nio 
Cerveira Pinto  into plain speech?

"What I meant by "cognitive issues" is not 
related so much with "cognitive processes" as to 
"cognitive environments". That is: BioArt (which 
is just a provisional safe expression to deal 
with a much open field -- cognitive arts --) will 
not go back to typical modern/contemporary 
de-constructivist strategies as long as it keeps 
close to cognitive strategies, either performed 
by humans alone, or by humans assisted by 
nanobots, computational networks and so on. What 
I mean by "cognitive" in relation to art is the 
need that post-contemporary art keep in mind that 
the new techne that post-contemporary is a part 
of, cannot runway from knowledge and cognitive strategies anymore."

Thanks,
Natasha


<http://www.natasha.cc/>Natasha <http://www.natasha.cc/>Vita-More
PhD Candidate, 
<http://www.planetary-collegium.net/about/>Planetary 
<http://www.planetary-collegium.net/about/>Collegium
<http://www.transhumanist.biz/>Transhumanist Arts & Culture
<http://www.extropy.org/>Extropy Institute

If you draw a circle in the sand and study only 
what's inside the circle, then that is a 
closed-system perspective. If you study what is 
inside the circle and everything outside the 
circle, then that is an open system perspective. - Buckminster Fuller


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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sat Jun  2 15:08:49 2007
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 17:08:49 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Post-contemporary art and Cognitive strategies
In-Reply-To: <200706022054.l52Ks2uZ028784@ms-smtp-03.texas.rr.com>
References: <200706022054.l52Ks2uZ028784@ms-smtp-03.texas.rr.com>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20070602170751.02273da0@satx.rr.com>

At 03:54 PM 6/2/2007 -0500, Natasha wrote:

>Can anyone translate this statement by Ant?nio 
>Cerveira Pinto  into plain speech?
>
>"What I meant by "cognitive issues" is not 
>related so much with "cognitive processes" as to 
>"cognitive environments". That is: BioArt (which 
>is just a provisional safe expression to deal 
>with a much open field -- cognitive arts --) 
>will not go back to typical modern/contemporary 
>de-constructivist strategies as long as it keeps 
>close to cognitive strategies, either performed 
>by humans alone, or by humans assisted by 
>nanobots, computational networks and so on. What 
>I mean by "cognitive" in relation to art is the 
>need that post-contemporary art keep in mind 
>that the new techne that post-contemporary is a 
>part of, cannot runway from knowledge and cognitive strategies anymore."

"Pull your head out of your ass and think a bit."




From austriaaugust at yahoo.com  Sat Jun  2 15:09:06 2007
From: austriaaugust at yahoo.com (A B)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 15:09:06 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.
In-Reply-To: <f21c22e30706012244y6722882dn9b12787c69092f5b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200163.18388.qm@web37402.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi Stathis,

Stathis wrote:

> "Single-celled organisms are even more successful
> than humans are: they're
> everywhere, and for the most part we don't even
> notice them."

But if we *really* wanted to, we could destroy all of
them - along with ourselves. They can't say the same.

Intelligence,
> particularly human level intelligence, is just a
> fluke, like the giraffe's
> neck. If it were specially adaptive, why didn't it
> evolve independently many
> times, like various sense organs have?

The evolution of human intelligence was like a series
of flukes, each one building off the last (the first
fluke was likely the most improbable). There has been
a long line of proto-human species before us, we're
just the latest model. Intelligence is specially
adaptive, its just that it took evolution a hella long
time to blindly stumble on to it. Keep in mind that
human intelligence was a result of a *huge* number of
random, collectively-useful, mutations. For a *single*
random attribute to be retained by a species, it also
has to provide an *immediate* survival or reproductive
advantage to an individual, not just an immediate
"promise" of something good to come in the far distant
future of the species. Generally, if it doesn't
provide an immediate survival or reproductive (net)
advantage, it isn't retained for very long because
there is usually a down-side, and its back to
square-one. So you can see why the rise of
intelligence was so ridiculously improbable.

 "Why don't we
> see evidence of it
> having taken over the universe?"

We may be starting to.  :-)

 "We would have to be
> extraordinarily lucky if
> intelligence had some special role in evolution and
> we happen to be the
> first example of it."

Sometimes I don't feel like ascribing "lucky" to our
present condition. But in the sense you mean it, I
think we are. Like John Clark says, "somebody has to
be first".

  "It's not impossible, but the
> evidence would suggest
> otherwise."

What evidence do you mean?

To quote Martin Gardner: "It takes an ancient Universe
to create life and mind". 

It would require billions of years for any Universe to
become hospitable to anyone. It has to cool-off, form
stars and galaxies, then a bunch of really big stars
have to supernova in order to spread their heavy
elements into interstellar clouds that eventually
converge into bio-friendly planets and suns. Then the
bio-friendly planet has too cool-off itself. Then
biological evolution has a chance to start, but took a
few billion more years to accidentally produce human
beings. Our Universe is about ~15 billion years old...
sounds about right to me. :-)

Yep, it's an absurdity. And it took me a long time to
accept it too. But we are the first, and possibly the
last. That makes our survival and success all the more
critical. That's what I'm betting, at least.

Best,

Jeffrey Herrlich 






 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate 
in the Yahoo! Answers Food & Drink Q&A.
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545367

From natasha at natasha.cc  Sat Jun  2 15:17:42 2007
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 17:17:42 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Post-contemporary art and Cognitive strategies
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20070602170751.02273da0@satx.rr.com>
References: <200706022054.l52Ks2uZ028784@ms-smtp-03.texas.rr.com>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20070602170751.02273da0@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <200706022217.l52MHhSa018942@ms-smtp-05.texas.rr.com>

At 05:08 PM 6/2/2007, you wrote:
>At 03:54 PM 6/2/2007 -0500, Natasha wrote:
>
> >Can anyone translate this statement by Ant?nio
> >Cerveira Pinto  into plain speech?
> >
> >"What I meant by "cognitive issues" is not
> >related so much with "cognitive processes" as to
> >"cognitive environments". That is: BioArt (which
> >is just a provisional safe expression to deal
> >with a much open field -- cognitive arts --)
> >will not go back to typical modern/contemporary
> >de-constructivist strategies as long as it keeps
> >close to cognitive strategies, either performed
> >by humans alone, or by humans assisted by
> >nanobots, computational networks and so on. What
> >I mean by "cognitive" in relation to art is the
> >need that post-contemporary art keep in mind
> >that the new techne that post-contemporary is a
> >part of, cannot runway from knowledge and cognitive strategies anymore."
>
>"Pull your head out of your ass and think a bit."


Ha-ha!  From the academic to the mundane. 
:-)  However crisp and cogent, your phrasing 
simply will not work for the book's essay.

Natasha

<http://www.natasha.cc/>Natasha <http://www.natasha.cc/>Vita-More
PhD Candidate, 
<http://www.planetary-collegium.net/about/>Planetary 
<http://www.planetary-collegium.net/about/>Collegium
<http://www.transhumanist.biz/>Transhumanist Arts & Culture
<http://www.extropy.org/>Extropy Institute

If you draw a circle in the sand and study only 
what's inside the circle, then that is a 
closed-system perspective. If you study what is 
inside the circle and everything outside the 
circle, then that is an open system perspective. - Buckminster Fuller


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From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jun  2 17:30:40 2007
From: spike66 at comcast.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 17:30:40 -0700
Subject: [ExI] walking bees
In-Reply-To: <20070602180825.GW17691@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <200706030048.l530mNl7000928@andromeda.ziaspace.com>


> Are you sure it's not Nosema ceranae and not Varroa?

The bees I found did not have varroa mites, but they could have tracheal
mites.  Hafta cut them open to find out.  Varroa mites ride on the outside
of the bee, so if you have really good eyes you can see them unaided.

The buzz in beekeepers' discussion (sorry {8^D) has been that nosema is seen
in the sick hives, along with a bunch of other viruses and other diseases,
but the prevailing thought is that they are getting all these other things
because they are already weakened by something else.  These would then be
opportunistic infections.

But it might be microscopic diseases that are getting these guys, which
brings me to my next question.  I wonder how much equipment it would take to
detect common bee viruses, and if it is practical for an amateur scientist
to buy the stuff needed to test for them.  Has anyone here ever heard of a
home kit to detect bee viruses?

spike




> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl
> Sent: Saturday, June 02, 2007 11:08 AM
> To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> Subject: Re: [ExI] walking bees
> 
> On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 08:28:34AM -0700, spike wrote:
> 
> > I theorized the bees I found might have tracheal mites, which is why I
> > brought them home.  I was going to try to dissect these, but my surgical
> > skills are insufficient I fear.
> 
> Are you sure it's not Nosema ceranae and not Varroa?
> 
> --
> Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
> ______________________________________________________________
> ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
> 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



From neville_06 at yahoo.com  Sat Jun  2 20:31:07 2007
From: neville_06 at yahoo.com (neville late)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 20:31:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future
In-Reply-To: <20070601150757.38f036b76284185e041b1b237c97abe6.e634d0daf0.wbe@email.secureserver.net>
Message-ID: <443489.63766.qm@web57514.mail.re1.yahoo.com>

This makes sense, in fact in another multiverse we might all be going through torture at this very moment.

kevin at kevinfreels.com wrote:        . As for the multi-verse issue, well, it doesn't matter if you signed up for cryonic preservation because in other multiverses you did sign up and in one of them you are probably going to be tortured. 
   
  When it comes down to it, I think people will have more important things to do with their time than torture people who were suspended and you are probably more likely to suffer from such a fate due to your own mistakes rather than the evil of others. So don't worry about it. 

  >Having signed up to be cryonically suspended i wonder if future beings will reanimate humans to torture >them in perpetua. The likelihood of such might be small, but just say there's a .001 risk of eating a ertain >food and going into convulsions lasting years-- would i eat that food? No.
   >Isigned up to be suspended anyway yet always wonder about the direst of reanimation possibilities >seeing as how we live in a multiverse not a universe, and all possibilities are conceivable. Though the risk >is very small if one loses the odds and is tortured forever, death would seem like a wonderful priceless gift. 
  
 
    
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From stathisp at gmail.com  Sat Jun  2 21:02:34 2007
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 14:02:34 +1000
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future
In-Reply-To: <004001c7a52d$4c089250$310b4e0c@MyComputer>
References: <465F8B72.3070103@comcast.net>
	<621544.83244.qm@web57511.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
	<f21c22e30706020551g4c20d0e6q8bfea3237e4ba360@mail.gmail.com>
	<004001c7a52d$4c089250$310b4e0c@MyComputer>
Message-ID: <f21c22e30706022102v6c7e777fp5a3d292b38d7ff6b@mail.gmail.com>

On 03/06/07, John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:

> The multiverse idea on its own would seem to imply the possibility of
> > eternal torture, because it isn't possible to die.
>
> Yes.
>
> > you have a 1/2 chance of finding yourself seriously injured
>
> I don't believe that's quite correct. When you reach a branching point
> like
> that there is a 100% chance you will find yourself to be seriously injured
> and a 100% chance you will find yourself not be. Both yous would be quite
> different from each other but both would have an equal right to be called
> you.


Yes, but the effect from any given observer's point of view is that there is
a 1/2 chance of being injured. It is exactly the same as a single world
situation where you have a 1/2 chance of being injured. That is why the
multiverse idea is debated at all: there is no way for an observer embedded
within the multiverse to tell that it is in fact a multiverse, because the
subjective probabilities work out the same.

> since the probability that you will survive n accidents unharmed is 1/2^n
> > and approaches zero as n approaches infinity.
>
> If you're dealing in infinite sets then standard probability theories
> aren't
> much use. If there are an infinite number of universes and for each one
> where you will live in bliss there are a million billion trillion where
> you
> will be tortured then there is an equal number of both types of universe.
>

So what would we actually experience in an infinite multiverse? An analogous
situation occurs in an infinite single universe. There are vastly fewer
copies of me typing in which the keyboard turns into a teapot than there are
copies of me typing in which the keyboard stays a keyboard, but the set of
each kind of copy has the same cardinality. Nevertheless, I am not just as
likely to find myself in a universe where the keyboard turns into a teapot.
It is still possible to define a measure and calculate probabilities on the
subsets of infinite sets.



-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Sat Jun  2 21:02:49 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 05:02:49 +0100
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future
In-Reply-To: <443489.63766.qm@web57514.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
References: <20070601150757.38f036b76284185e041b1b237c97abe6.e634d0daf0.wbe@email.secureserver.net>
	<443489.63766.qm@web57514.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0706022102n1609d8b6yf5091c8690e17dc@mail.gmail.com>

On 6/3/07, neville late <neville_06 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> This makes sense, in fact in another multiverse we might all be going
> through torture at this very moment.
>

And in yet another part of the multiverse, I'm living in a mansion, driving
a Ferrari and sleeping with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Given that we're talking
about theoretical possibilities here, why not focus on the more pleasant
ones?
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From neville_06 at yahoo.com  Sat Jun  2 21:02:45 2007
From: neville_06 at yahoo.com (neville late)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 21:02:45 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future
In-Reply-To: <017001c7a48e$6c4d1210$6400a8c0@hypotenuse.com>
Message-ID: <829867.33411.qm@web57515.mail.re1.yahoo.com>

Yes come to think of it, it would make better sense to breed torture victims than reanimate them from suspension; then again anything is possible in an infinite number of multiverses.
  i used cryonics as a reference because i'm an older person and expect to be suspended in a decade or two, so being tortured in this lifetime subjectively appears even more unlikely than being tortured in a current or future multiverse.

Joseph Bloch <joseph at josephbloch.com> wrote:
      Why would your hypothetical future beings reanimate human beings for such a purpose? Surely it would be easier to simply breed them. 
   
  I don't see how your concern applies to cryonics in particular. If you think it's at all likely (and I do not), surely it would apply to already-living people before those in need of revivification, purely from the standpoint of efficiency.
   
  Joseph
  http://www.josephbloch.com
   
   

      
---------------------------------
  From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of neville late
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 3:53 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future


  
  Having signed up to be cryonically suspended i wonder if future beings will reanimate humans to torture them in perpetua. The likelihood of such might be small, but just say there's a .001 risk of eating a certain food and going into convulsions lasting years-- would i eat that food? No.
   I signed up to be suspended anyway yet always wonder about the direst of reanimation possibilities seeing as how we live in a multiverse not a universe, and all possibilities are conceivable. Though the risk is very small if one loses the odds and is tortured forever, death would seem like a wonderful priceless gift. 
  
 
    
---------------------------------
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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sat Jun  2 21:31:15 2007
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 23:31:15 -0500
Subject: [ExI] a doubt concerning the h+ future
In-Reply-To: <8d71341e0706022102n1609d8b6yf5091c8690e17dc@mail.gmail.com
 >
References: <20070601150757.38f036b76284185e041b1b237c97abe6.e634d0daf0.wbe@email.secureserver.net>
	<443489.63766.qm@web57514.mail.re1.yahoo.com>
	<8d71341e0706022102n1609d8b6yf5091c8690e17dc@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20070602233013.022ed0e0@satx.rr.com>

At 05:02 AM 6/3/2007 +0100, Russell W wrote:

>And in yet another part of the multiverse, I'm living in a mansion, 
>driving a Ferrari and sleeping with Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The downside there is that you're a whiny vampire. But hey.



From sjatkins at mac.com  Sat Jun  2 22:02:53 2007
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2007 22:02:53 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Let's Canonize Samantha (Was Re: Other thoughts on
	transhumanism and religion)
In-Reply-To: <465F939D.4080005@comcast.net>
References: <470a3c520705270309u3672146ctad4f41352b60e7a4@mail.gmail.com>
	<465E871E.30008@mac.com> <465F939D.4080005@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <BA41B5C9-9D58-4AEC-8709-5BD2A191C602@mac.com>

Go ahead.  It already was published on WTA.  Thanks.

- samantha

On May 31, 2007, at 8:33 PM, Brent Allsop wrote:

>
> Extropians,
>
> I think this post by Samantha should be Canonized.  I, for one, having
> had a very similar experience, would definitely "support" a topic
> containing it, and I have counted at least 10 posts full of strong
> praise.