[ExI] Survival (was: elections again)

[Harvey Newstrom]

On Wednesday 02 January 2008 03:41, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> Yes, it could take a day or two to take over this planet.
> Even if it takes a week or a month, there's not a damn
> thing you can do about it.

Please give more specifics than just this assertion.  What do you mean by take 
over the planet?  Convert to computronium?  With what?  With nanites?  How 
will it get a MNT factory built in a week?

Seriously, I keep hearing these predictions that once a recursive AI gets 
looping, it will transform the earth in a day (or a week or a month).  But I 
never get any specifics as to how, except that it's so much smarter than us 
that the laws of physics don't apply to it.

Is this whole prediction based on the assumption that the AI will do something 
that we can't predict is even possible right now?  Does it require great 
unknown powers or exceptions to our current understanding of physics to exist 
that we just haven't discovered yet?  How exactly is this "...then a miracle 
occurs..." supposed to happen?

-- 
Harvey Newstrom <www.harveynewstrom.com>
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