[ExI] Digital identity

[BillK]

On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> The upper boundary is set by the number of reachable galaxies (a couple of
> billion by my last count), how much of the matter can be converted into
> computronium, and how fast it runs. If we assume 10^11 stars per galaxy,
> 10^42 to 10^48 computations per second in a M-brain, that I can run on 10^17
> computations per second, we get a capacity for 1e46 to 1e52 active Anderses.
> Using Seth LLoyd's "ultimate laptop" bound  10^51 operations per second, if
> we convert the matter into 2*10^51 "laptops" we get a capacity for running
> 2*10^85 Anderses. However, they just have 10^31 bits of storage each, so
> each laptop can only house around 10^16 Anderses, bringing down the
> simultaneous number to merely 2*10^67.
>
> OK, that was a bit of shameless ego-stroking. But I promise to be merciful
> when I take over the universe.
>

:) Yes, but.....
Don't jump ahead too far, too fast.  Human uploads will start before
we get past Mars, far less other galaxies.


> In real life, the market. Running computations cost money, and it will be
> paid for by the uploads or people/organisations sponsoring them. Uploading
> becomes economically feasible when the cost per upload goes down to the
> order of a million dollars. Most models I have seen suggest that the huge
> economic incentives for getting more uploads will drive down costs a lot,
> and of course lead to the manufacturing of more supporting resources.
>
> On Earth I think the real limitations will be communications lags and heat
> dissipation; Robin Hanson estimates a market for a handful of super-dense
> "cities" in the early days. But the speed the infrastructure gets built is
> likely to be slow relative to the upload timeframe, so they will indeed find
> expansion expensive and annoying.
>
>

Faith in the market is quite touching in these days of rapacious fraud
taking over everything of value. :)

>
> Think property rights. You want to run a hundred copies? Fine, pay for the
> servers. Forks will likely legally have equal shares in the original copy's
> resource, so if you make a hundred copies of yourself each copy will now
> have a hundredth of your wealth. Probably a smart idea to form a co-op.
>
>

Again, property rights are being trampled on all over the world.
Inequality is increasing as less and less is left for the 99%. "Laws
are for the little people".

But the politics is straying away from the technical problems. I doubt
if uploads are feasible if they depend on a rack of servers running in
the Googleplex. Powerful uploads will require resources under their
own control, not dependant on a power failure or someone hitting the
OFF button. This probably means much more advanced technology, perhaps
nanoscale processors in space utilizing solar / nuclear power.

Looks to me like uploads will be for the very rich only, each in their
own virtual empire in space.

BillK