[ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 17/06/07, Anna Taylor <femmechakra at yahoo.ca> wrote:

>Interestingly, aside from some small communities
> >such as the Amish, the differences between adoption
> >rates of new technology have almost always been to
> >do with differences in access, not a conscious
> >decision to remain old-fashioned.
>
> I think that what you acknowledge as small communities
> is substantially larger than what you think.  The
> Amish are full aware of the access, they "choose" not
> to accept it based on old-fashioned beliefs. I can
> name a lot of institutions that have substantial
> benefactors to old fashioned beliefs.
>
> >There won't be coercion, but there will be seduction.
>
> I wonder, what level of seduction led the Amish to
> accept electricity as they previously would never have
> even acknowledged the idea?  Although they have only
> recently acknowledged a need for the use, it is still
> called progress.  Therefore, progress must take time
> to achieve it's purpose. Do you agree?


I wasn't aware that the Amish now use electricity! Perhaps it is because
electricity is now so commonplace that it is no longer "modern technology".
You have to set the threshold somewhere, even if it is as the level of
stone-age tools, which were surely at least as radical compared to *no tools
at all* than any technological innovation since.




-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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