[ExI] favor for a friend

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat



 



>… The ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, or the constant called Pi. 

>…Pi is true, in the sense that is a well-defined, self-consistent concept…

 

True.

 

>…that can be derived from a precise algorithm. …

 

True.  BUT DON”T DO IT!  Giovanni, don’t do it man.  It’s illegal!  Or if not, it’s highly unadvisable.

 

Reasoning: any image or photograph can be (well actually it is) represented by a string of bytes representing the color of a pixel.  Typically a modern internet-ready photo is about a megabyte-length string of bits.  An algorithm to calculate pi is infinite, in the sense that it will continue to produce bits indefinitely, but if so, then it generates any given string of bits, for instance 1010001101, about every thousand iterations (because 2^10 is about a thousand) and likewise any string of 20 bits about every million bits, but the point is… every possible string of bits, regardless of how long… will turn up eventually.

 

Some images are illegal, such as some types of pornography depicting minors for instance, and there are an infinite number of possible such images one would imagine, so all of those would be considered illegal, and all strings of bits, regardless of how long, will eventually be produced.  Therefore… that pi-calculating algorithm will eventually produce child pornography.  So don’t do it, and if that isn’t scary enough…

 

…we go on and on here on ExI about AI and we hafta imagine some types of AI are friendly and want to save humanity, but some are unfriendly AI and will be a self-replicating bastard, who will get into everything, start wars and totally screw us all.  As with any piece of code, there are arbitrarily many variations on a theme that still work the same way, so one can argue there are infinitely many good Ais and infinitely many evil Ais.  We haven’t actually discovered any of them yet, but if you run that pi algorithm long enough, eventually it will generate one.  Or… the other.  

 

So… Which will it be?  Do you feel lucky?

 

spike

 

 

 

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