The Technological Singularity and super intelligence revolution

[alfred russel]

Eh, I'd rather be climate aware. Much more important issue.

The singularity will be able to solve our climate issues. 

[Razgovory]

I think you should be skeptical of futurists in general, and extremely suspicious of ones that make absurd claims like "we will abolish death", or, "we will create anything from nothing".

[crazy canuck]

I think you should be skeptical of futurists in general, and extremely suspicious of ones that make absurd claims like "we will abolish death", or, "we will create anything from nothing".

Or you can simply conclude they watch too many star trek re-runs.

[11B4V]

Eh, I'd rather be climate aware. Much more important issue.

The singularity will be able to solve our climate issues. 

Yeah, by killing all the humans.

[Iormlund]

Let's assume for a moment that this technological singularity will happen.  One of the implications is that computers and robots will be able to self-improve at an increasing rate.  So they will become self-aware, and will no doubt become much more capable than humans.  This sounds suspiciously like Skynet.  What I am trying to say is, is technological singularity something that we should look forward to, or is it something that we need to guard against 

The technological singularity will turn us into Skynet.

We will start by simply augmenting our bodies. For example with nanobot immune systems which can defend you from anything with a simple firmware update, emergency shut-off valves for our bloodstream in case of accident, bypassable pain receptors, enhanced senses, datalinks, auxiliary co-processors and memory banks.

[DontSayBanana]

Gah, futurists.  I wish I got paid that kind of money to speculate wildly, incorrectly describe processes, make up whatever pseudo-science I feel will back up my claim, and generally scare the crap out of people.

The plain facts of the matter, and this is speaking as someone who's trying to specialize in artificial general intelligence, are that we don't have a path toward making one.  It's not a question of numbers, like the futurists claim; it's the fact that we simply can't make a computer convincingly show preference.  Also, you don't know what you don't know.  The best futurists in the world can only make guesses when it comes to AGI, when it will happen, what it will look like, how it will react (but you better believe we're going to keep it isolated until we're damn sure it's safe), etc.

Oh, and you can take that "die progress unit" and file it right next to a Scientologists' "thetans-" that's how meaningful a measurement it is.  The author made it up, and it's total bullshit.  If culture shock due to technology could kill an early human, then a chimpanzee would die upon seeing a can opener "magically transform" a can into food.  I'm not about to put too much stock into an author who uses an easily disprovable urban myth as a "unit of measurement."

[The Brain]

(but you better believe we're going to keep it isolated until we're damn sure it's safe)

[Tonitrus]

Eh, I'd rather be climate aware. Much more important issue.

The singularity will be able to solve our climate issues. 

Yeah, by killing all the humans.

That won't work...we'll still have a climate. 

[Razgovory]

Gah, futurists.  I wish I got paid that kind of money to speculate wildly, incorrectly describe processes, make up whatever pseudo-science I feel will back up my claim, and generally scare the crap out of people.

The plain facts of the matter, and this is speaking as someone who's trying to specialize in artificial general intelligence, are that we don't have a path toward making one.  It's not a question of numbers, like the futurists claim; it's the fact that we simply can't make a computer convincingly show preference.  Also, you don't know what you don't know.  The best futurists in the world can only make guesses when it comes to AGI, when it will happen, what it will look like, how it will react (but you better believe we're going to keep it isolated until we're damn sure it's safe), etc.

Oh, and you can take that "die progress unit" and file it right next to a Scientologists' "thetans-" that's how meaningful a measurement it is.  The author made it up, and it's total bullshit.  If culture shock due to technology could kill an early human, then a chimpanzee would die upon seeing a can opener "magically transform" a can into food.  I'm not about to put too much stock into an author who uses an easily disprovable urban myth as a "unit of measurement."

It would appear to be a problem of kind rather then degree.  If you sped up a dog's brain you wouldn't have a dog who thinks like a man, you would just have dog that's particularly quick on his feet.  To build this "god computer" you would need to program it to be able think in ways that human beings can't imagine.  That would appear to be impossible by definition.

It seems to me that "The singularity" is to computer science as the philosopher's stone was to chemistry.

[frunk]

It's possible that humanity will create a self aware intelligence smarter than us.

The difficulties in doing that are wildly underestimated by those who have never done any AI work.

What happens at that point is pure speculation, as in it seems like the futurists are assuming that just because something is smarter than us human motivation and potential physical limitations of the new intelligence become completely irrelevant. 

[Siege]

You guys really didn't read the two parts of the opening link.
Tim Urban actually flesh out most pro and con points, including all the stuff you guys mention.

Yes, ASI might be impossible to achieve, with it being a simulation of intelligence rather than being actually self aware. That's ok, the are many other paths in front of us.

The bigger picture though, and the argument that really have me thinking, is that ALL intelligence, as it develops as a societal species, lead to a technological singularity  and a post scarcity civilization. Unless it self destroy in the process.

In other words if you take all technology from humankind right now, humanity would just start from zero and in a few thousand years it would be right where we are now. On the brink of a technological singularity. Because intelligence by definition accumulates knowledge in the search of happiness and a better way of life. Eventually leading to the search for immortality, the ultimate goal of every self-aware organism.

[Monoriu]

I like to think it is humanity's destiny to create a robotic race that is more capable than us.  Humans will be destroyed in the process and the robots will move on to become masters. 

[Eddie Teach]

In other words if you take all technology from humankind right now, humanity would just start from zero and in a few thousand years it would be right where we are now. On the brink of a technological singularity. Because intelligence by definition accumulates knowledge in the search of happiness and a better way of life. Eventually leading to the search for immortality, the ultimate goal of every self-aware organism.

Battlestar Galactica figured it would take us 150,000 years to get back. Because apparently their people forgot what farming and writing are, and the urge to congregate in cities.

[Siege]

I like to think it is humanity's destiny to create a robotic race that is more capable than us.  Humans will be destroyed in the process and the robots will move on to become masters. 

Oh pleez, you watch too much movies.

The technological singularity is the merging of humans and technology. Un-enhanced humans will not be able to keep up with the exponential advances.

We will be the droids, the ASIs, the immortal explorers of the universe, eventually ascending to a higher plane of existence as some form of software, retreating from the physical world, interacting with it only through our avatars.

One day, when you go to visit a friend, you will not be visiting just his home, but his own world, probably his own universe, with the rules he sees fit, and we will judge each other ethically by the way we treat the NPCs living in our virtual worlds.

Maybe.

There are way too many paths to a post singularity post scarcity civilization.

[Razgovory]

You guys really didn't read the two parts of the opening link.
Tim Urban actually flesh out most pro and con points, including all the stuff you guys mention.

Yes, ASI might be impossible to achieve, with it being a simulation of intelligence rather than being actually self aware. That's ok, the are many other paths in front of us.

The bigger picture though, and the argument that really have me thinking, is that ALL intelligence, as it develops as a societal species, lead to a technological singularity  and a post scarcity civilization. Unless it self destroy in the process.

In other words if you take all technology from humankind right now, humanity would just start from zero and in a few thousand years it would be right where we are now. On the brink of a technological singularity. Because intelligence by definition accumulates knowledge in the search of happiness and a better way of life. Eventually leading to the search for immortality, the ultimate goal of every self-aware organism.

I read it, it's simply bullshit.  It's not like Mr. Urban is neutral in this.  He is very much a booster.  Maybe you should read some stuff debunking the whole concept.