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stem cell bans, codex for natural health products, and laws that might
prevent<br>
technology from developing outside of military confines are double
edged.<br>
<br>
If large number use and access is a function of quantum computing then
this" innumeracy act"<br>
may eventually divert the moore's law pathway into non-commercial uses
only and possibly divert<br>
the high level computational capacity required by AIs to non-civilian
use only.<br>
<br>
This might confine the initial singularity to non-civilians , that is
so long as the resulting AIs <br>
do not override this and create a distributed, open source access<br>
under conditions they feel appropriate.<br>
<br>
Socialization amonst AIs might amount to offering to humans the
evolutionary option to<br>
upgrade themselves to a level at which they become "fit company" for
AIs.<br>
<br>
Somehow, the G9 military seems more trustworthy than many of the nut
cases who have crawled to top<br>
of the world's political food chain over the years.<br>
<br>
MFJ<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Damien Broderick wrote:<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid6.2.1.2.0.20051009122822.01eb5fc8@pop-server.satx.rr.com"
type="cite">At 01:23 PM 10/9/2005 -0400, Harvey wrote:
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">People are still expecting the singularity
within a decade. It simply won't happen. Everybody will think I am
too pessimistic now. And then everyone will deny making these
predictions 10 years from now.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
My take in the US edition of THE SPIKE (revised 2000, published 2001)
was this, at the close of my final chapter:
<br>
<br>
<Since I don't know the true shape of the future any more than you
do, I certainly don't know whether an AI or nano-minted Singularity
will be brought about (assuming it does actually occur) by careful,
effortful design in an Institute with a Spike engraved on its door, by
a congeries of industrial and scientific research vectors, or by
military ambitions pouring zillions of dollars into a new arena that
promises endless power through mayhem, or mayhem threateningly
withheld. [...]
<br>
What of social forces taking up arms against this future? We've
seen the start of a new round of protests and civil disruptions aimed
at genetically engineered foods, work in cloning and genomics, but not
yet at longevity or computing research. It will come, inevitably. We
shall see strange bedfellows arrayed against the machineries of major
change. The only question is how effective the impact will be. [...]
<br>
Cultural objections to AI, cryonics and uploading will
emerge, as venomous as yesterday's and today's attacks on contraception
and abortion rights, or anti-racism struggles. If opposition to the
Spike [that is, the Singularity], or any of its contributing factors,
gets attached to one or more influential religions or cults, that might
set back or divert the rushing current. Alternatively, careful,
balanced study of the risks of general assemblers and autonomous
artificial intelligence might result in just the kinds of moratoriums
that Greens now urge upon genetically engineered crops and herds.
<br>
Given the time lag before a singularity occurs--at least a
decade, and far more probably at least two or even five--there's room
for plenty of informed specialist and public debate of this sort. Just
as the basic technologies of the Spike will depend on design-ahead
projects, so too we'll need a kind of think-ahead program to prepare us
for changes that otherwise might, indeed, scare us witless. And of
course, the practical, day-to-day impact of new technologies always
conditions the sorts of social values that emerge in response to their
arrival. Recall the subtle interplay between availability of the oral
contraceptive pill and swiftly changing sexual mores, the easy
acceptance of in vitro conception.
<br>
Despite possible impediments to the arrival of the Spike,
then, I suggest that while it might be delayed, almost certainly it's
not going to be halted. If anything, the surging advances I see every
day coming from labs around the world convince me that we already are
racing up the lower slopes of its curve into the incomprehensible.
<br>
In short, it makes little sense to try to pin down the future
with any exactness. Too many strange changes are occurring already,
with more lurking just out of sight, ready to leap from the equations
and surprise us. True AI, when it occurs, might dash within days or
months to SI (superintelligence), and from there into a realm of Powers
whose motives and plans we can't even start to second-guess. Nano
minting could go feral or worse, used by crackpots or statesmen to
squelch their foes and rapidly smear us all into paste. Or sublime AI
Powers might use it to the same end, recycling our atoms into better
living through femtotechnology.
<br>
The single thing I feel confident of is that one of these
trajectories will start its visible run up the right-hand side of the
graph within 10 or 20 years, and by 2030 (or 2050 at latest) will have
put into question everything we hold self-evident. We will live
forever; or we will all perish most horribly; our minds will emigrate
to cyberspace, starting the most ferocious overpopulation race ever
seen on the planet; or our machines will Transcend and take us with
them, or leave us in some peaceful backwater where the meek shall
inherit the Earth. Or something else, something far weirder and...
unimaginable. >
<br>
<br>
Damien Broderick <br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">On 07/10/05, Mike Lorrey <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:mlorrey@yahoo.com"><mlorrey@yahoo.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""><span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Today a representative from the United States Ministry of Freedom
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Announced that the Senate is drafting a bill to ban Prime Numbers. The
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>Bill is called "The Innumeracy & Unpatriotic Calculations Act", and
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>will be an extension of the Patriot Act. "Innumeracy" is a new word
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>meaning 'unpatriotic Math'. Prime Numbers are only equally divisible
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>by 1 and the number itself. This unique property, along with the
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>difficulty of factoring large numbers is what allows for all Internet
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>and electronic cryptography. The government's justification for the ban
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>on Prime Numbers is that terrorists could use cryptography to send
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>secret messages to each other, and these secret messages could threaten
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>American's freedom. Bush was quoted as saying, "In Kindergarten, kids
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>used to pass secret messages to each other when the teacher wasn't
<span class="moz-txt-citetags">> </span>looking. It wasn't fair then, and it isn't fair now". ...
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I'm assuming that Spike, with his unwholesome cohort of unamerican
GIMPs sympathisers will lead the revolution.
--
Emlyn
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://emlynoregan.com">http://emlynoregan.com</a> * blogs * music * software *</pre>
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