<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On May 16, 2006, at 5:36 AM, Russell Wallace wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">On 5/16/06, <B class="gmail_sendername">Heartland</B> <<A href="mailto:velvet977@hotmail.com">velvet977@hotmail.com</A>> wrote:<DIV><SPAN class="gmail_quote"></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> It sounds to me like you don't have much faith in hard take-off. Is this correct?</BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR> In the same way that I don't have much faith in dowsing, perpetual motion machines and God needing a lot of money sent to a certain box number, yes.<BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>Surely you jest. Given a >human AI capable of self-improvement a hard take-off is at least possible.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>- samantha</DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></BODY></HTML>