[ExI] Oxford scientists edge toward quantum PC with 10b qubits.

[Stefano Vaj]

On 3 February 2011 20:07, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 10:07 AM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
> They're already doing this with insect-level AI.  In theory, one could
> just scale those efforts up.  In practice, such scaling will require new
> software architectures (as well as more raw hardware, but that's not a
> problem).

Yes, but from a practical POV, brute-force attacks and lower-level
emulations are converging, and I do not expect that at, say. a frog
level, we are going to hit a glass ceiling.

Much less for the kind of "intelligence" which has nothing to do with
the emulation of biological behaviours and simply reflects a system
performance in executing a given task.

The actual stagnation risk, which should catch more attention in
comparison with rapture/doom fantasies, does not depend IMHO from any
obvious technical or scientific boundaries, but rather from cultural,
ideological and economic factors.

Short-termism, growing inability to invest in long-term civilisational
projects, industrial decline, increasing academic conservatism, the
consequent crisis of our educational systems, negative social
selection and values, technological  inertia, and a definitely
less-than-incandescent Zeitgeist all bode not too well for our
immediate future.

*This* is what I think transhumanism and singularitarianism should get
busy with...

-- 
Stefano Vaj