Re: [OT?] consciousness discussion on PBS
----- Original Message -----
From: <jbrown105 at speedymail.org>
On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 06:51:43PM -0700, Dan Moyer wrote:
> I think I might agree with you about "...smarter than most humans.", but
I
> also don't think any "willful" AI would bother going to court; why
bother,
> when it could more easily just destroy all humans with a plague? Amoral
or
> angry humans do all sort of atrocities, including writing computer viri,
so
> no matter how much people might try to make sure any AI would be "safe"
or
> moral in its behaviour, *someone* is likely to just create a "mean" AI
for
> spite or whatever, and that will be all she wrote for humans.
>
I don't think human's would have much say in the programming of
super-intellegent
AI's period. The closest a human (or group of humans) could get would be
to
set up the computer (or more likely, network of computers) to run a set of
programs to 'evolve' the mind, after that the AI would learn on its own.
Mmm, perhaps.
(I guess its possible for the humans to try to 'raise' the AI to be a bad
boy
but I'd question how lasting such 'parenting' would be ... but the
'psycology'
we're going into at this point is a bit over my head so I can merely
guess.)
I'd see no reason that "as the twig is bent, so the tree grows" wouldn't
apply to an AI, but you're right, it's just a guess.
> And, in a not very related vein, that doesn't even begin to touch upon
the
> "assymototic cusp" of faster & faster technologic development leading to
an
> *infinite* rate of technologic invention at some real (near?) time
suggested
> by S.F. author Vernor Vinge, leading to an absolute inability to in any
> meaningful way conjecture about the future *after* that point in time.
I misspelled asymptotic.
>
For an infinite rate of invention wouldnt you need an infinite amount of
information? And for that wouldnt you need an infinite amount of matter to
store the info on?
Yes, that makes sense, but your interesting "galactic park" idea could
provide a way around that: some of those "parks" could be like "pocket
universes", chucked infinitely full of information storage devices, perhaps
an infinite number of them in a users pocket :)
> Explanation: imagine a graph of rate of tech invention against time;
see it
> flat for a long time from dawn of mankind, then slowly curving up, then
> seeming straight line upward (industrial revolution), then maybe
> "exponential" curve upward (now), all with similar result: infinite
rate of
> tech invention at point infinite in future; now see that the curve may
be so
> much more "upward faster and faster" that it is more like a hyperbola or
> parabola (assymototic), in that it might tend toward infinity at a
*real*,
> NOT infinite point in time. What would reality be like *after* a point
in
> time at which the rate of tech invention was infinite? Beyond saying,
> "big", ie, likely affecting the entire universe, perhaps in pursuit of
> fending off the eventual death of the universe, couldn't say much at
all.
Concurred.
>
> Which also seems to me to be a reasonable argument *against* the
existance
> of any extraterrestrial intelligences, because if there were, (which I
would
> otherwise assume there to be), then some of them would likely also
express a
> similar assymototic rate of tech invention, one of which would likely
have
> happened already; but the one thing one might conjecture about reality
> *after* such an event is that it would probably be *non*-local in its
> effects, that is, it would probably affect the entire universe...and
we've
> seen no such "universe shattering" event. Not a proof, of course, but
not
> unreasonable.
Of course, such an advanced race could decide to have special 'galatic
parks'
which would be untouched by their infinitely advanced technology... and
we might just happen to be in one of those. (Much in the same way many
countries have nature preserves.)
Neat! I never thought of that. Perhaps as likely would be for them to
*retreat* into such a park themselves, constructed so as to be non-ending
and entirely separate from this "real" universe, and leave the ultimately
dying real universe & its inhabitants to our own devices.
Dan Moyer
>
> Dan Moyer
>
jbrown
>
>
> TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE!
>
>
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