[extropy-chat] Singularity Blues

Gary Miller aiguy at comcast.net
Wed Apr 6 17:34:12 UTC 2005


>> Debatable, but in any case, setting things up so as to create as many 
>> superintelligences as possible would seem likely to avoid the many
problems 
>> that have been pointed out with a single intelligence dominating
everything.

I agree wholeheartedly, but reality dictates that the major advances most
likely to
trigger singularity will emerge from private for profit research or
government funded 
research projects.

At the point a privately developed technology gains publicity either through
doing 
amazingly well in the Turing or in a commercial natural language recognition
project, 
whoever owns this technology will be targeted for acquisition.

And once the commercial and military implications of said technology sets
in, it will be
very difficult for the developers to resist the monetary enticement.

The challenge then will be to sell off small pieces at the edge of the
technology or services 
to fund further development without giving away the farm.

Open sourcing a technology that powerful would be roughly equivalent to
passing out free
enriched plutonium at the UN.

> All the power goes to the
> superintelligences that invent the stuff, and that's what we should 
> prepare for.

Correct preparation should probably involve tracking the technologies most
likely to lead to
the singularity.  (What we're doing here...)

Send invitation to the movers behind the technology to join this mailing
list in a professional
manner that encourages them to become involved.

Encouraging open dialogue with the movers behind the technology and creating
an environment 
where those movers can publicly express their long term humanitarian plans
for the
technology should they be successful without contempt or recrimination. (A
little weak here IMHO)  

Cull the best material in the list archives into a Wiki that summarizes the
many topics we discuss 
here and encourage new subscribers to the list to read the Wiki first to
prevent the constant rehash 
of old topics.  Document the objectives and scope of the Wiki and mailing
list to reduce flame wars 
and associated wasted bandwidth.

Hopefully the eventual creators of the technology leading to the singularity
will be attracted to the 
Extropian movement and develop a synergy with it's participants.





More information about the extropy-chat mailing list