[ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.

[A B]

Stathis wrote:

> "No we couldn't: we'd have to almost destroy the
> whole Earth. A massive
> meteorite might kill all the large flora and fauna,
> but still leave some
> micro-organisms alive. And there's always the
> possibility that some disease
> might wipe out most of humanity. We're actually less
> capable at combating
> bacterial infection today than we were several
> decades ago, even though our
> biotechnology is far more advanced. The bugs are
> matching us and sometimes
> beating us."

Well, this is just splitting hairs growing on hairs
but we will be in a good position to destroy all
microorganisms and the useful earth within a couple
decades, with something like molecular manufacturing.
And it wouldn't require any genetic change to
homosapiens. We must prevent that from happening of
course, and we will. Microorganisms could never
possibly destroy themselves as a species because they
lack the intelligence to make it happen, unfortunately
that's not the case with us.

Do you honestly believe that the products of our human
intelligence haven't conferred any survival or
reproductive advantages, compared to other animals?

> "I disagree with that: it's far easier to see how
> intelligence could be both
> incrementally increased (by increasing brain size,
> for example) and
> incrementally useful than something like the eye,
> for example. Once nervous
> tissue developed, there should have been a massive
> intelligence arms race,
> if intelligence is that useful."

But the eye also evolved slowly. It likely began as a
photo-sensitive skin pigmentation, that slowly evolved
concavity, and so on. Human intelligence has only
evolved once so far, because it was a much bigger,
more complex, more unlikely "project".

Below a certain threshold, I totally agree, a small
incremental improvement in intelligence isn't likely
to confer all that much benefit relative to the other
animals. The likely threshold is the capacity to
utilize tools (like sticks and rocks in multiple,
varied ways) and to make tools. And I suspect that
that one leap was *extremely* improbable, as evolution
customarily never makes leaps but only baby-steps -
and then only if they convey immediate  aggregate
advantage. Imagine suddenly taking away from humans
every invention we have ever made; would we really be
much more "fit" than the other animals until we began
making tools again? Probably not. Also, evolution
could not have produced intelligence unless certain
prerequisites were already in place. Magically giving
a cactus human-level intelligence isn't likely to
improve its survival or reproduction. The evolution of
intelligence would require a means of perceiving the
world (senses) and acting within in it (locomotion) -
in such a way that the benefits of having more
intelligence could be expressed in terms of advantages
in survival or reproduction. And the parent animal
would need to already have the physiology to allow the
creation of tools: eg. standing semi-erect, and the
infamous opposable thumb. That's why the cactus
doesn't already have human-level intelligence, even
though multicellular plants are way, way older than
apes. So for these sorts of reasons, I consider the
evolution of human intelligence as something of a
miracle (in the strictly non-religious sense, of
course). And something highly improbable, in all
likelihood.

> "It seems more likely to me that life is very
> widespread, but intelligence is
> an aberration."

Yes, I meant that we are the first significant
intelligence in this Universe, in my estimation.
Intelligence is just an aberration like you say, but
once it reaches human-level, it also happens to be
extremely useful.

Best,

Jeffrey Herrlich 
  


--- Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 03/06/07, A B <austriaaugust at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > 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.
> 
> 
> No we couldn't: we'd have to almost destroy the
> whole Earth. A massive
> meteorite might kill all the large flora and fauna,
> but still leave some
> micro-organisms alive. And there's always the
> possibility that some disease
> might wipe out most of humanity. We're actually less
> capable at combating
> bacterial infection today than we were several
> decades ago, even though our
> biotechnology is far more advanced. The bugs are
> matching us and sometimes
> beating us.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> I disagree with that: it's far easier to see how
> intelligence could be both
> incrementally increased (by increasing brain size,
> for example) and
> incrementally useful than something like the eye,
> for example. Once nervous
> tissue developed, there should have been a massive
> intelligence arms race,
> if intelligence is that useful.
> 
> "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?
> 
> 
> The fact that we seem to be the only intelligent
> species to have developed
> on the planet or in the universe. One explanation
> for this is that evolution
> just doesn't think that human level or better
> intelligence is as cool as we
> think it is.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> It seems more likely to me that life is very
> widespread, but intelligence is
> an aberration.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou
> > _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
> 



 
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