The Technological Singularity and super intelligence revolution

[Siege]

This is one of the best explanations online about superintelligence and the technological singularity, and how exponential technological growth works.

Part 1:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html

Part 2:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html

[Monoriu]

Siege, I appreciate that, and I read the first few paragraphs.  But I am not going to continue, because it is far too long, and more importantly, the whole thing sounds like wishful thinking or speculation to me.

[Siege]

Siege, I appreciate that, and I read the first few paragraphs.  But I am not going to continue, because it is far too long, and more importantly, the whole thing sounds like wishful thinking or speculation to me.

The author, Tim Urban, is famous for being neutral and breaking down arguments all the way to the bottom.
That's why his site is called "wait but why?"

I am not saying you have to agree with him, just that if you want an impartial assessment by someone not from the tech industry, this is it.

He goes through all the different opinions and classifies the arguments and theories from kool-aid optimism to anxious pessimism.

I myself i am not convinced about the viability of ASI artificial super intelligence, as a self aware entity.
I am more think towards the merging between humans and AI, meaning any ASI would be of biological origin...
And I think the optimist corner is too optimist.

But I am open to the discussion.

Bottom line, when you have the time read it if you can.
This is clearly the tech topic of the century, whether right or wrong.

[Razgovory]

I'm not exactly clear what is being measured on a graph where the side bar says "progress".  I'm kinda curious what the methodology is on that.

[Siege]

Sorry man. He lists all his sources at the bottom.

[Razgovory]

His source is himself.  Exactly what is an increment of "human progress"?  How do you measure such a thing?

[Valmy]

His source is himself.  Exactly what is an increment of "human progress"?  How do you measure such a thing?

Well you can make predictions based on past progress. You know, like Moore's Law...not actually a law but based on an educated guess.

[katmai]

Can someone please explain to me why I shouldn't send this to deleted thread like all the other nonsense shit spam we get from sock puppets like siege?

[Valmy]

Can someone please explain to me why I shouldn't send this to deleted thread like all the other nonsense shit spam we get from sock puppets like siege?

Because you don't delete all of Tim's threads?

[katmai]

Oh I would, if only he wasn't under the protection of Neil.

[Monoriu]

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 

[Razgovory]

His source is himself.  Exactly what is an increment of "human progress"?  How do you measure such a thing?

Well you can make predictions based on past progress. You know, like Moore's Law...not actually a law but based on an educated guess.

Moore's law is based on a discrete measurement.  The speed of computers.  "Progress", is far more nebulous.  How do we know the rate of "progress" has increased exponentially rather then linearly over the last 20 years?  To make a graph (which is what this is based on), you need actual numbers to be plotted.  For the numbers to be plotted you need to measure "human progress" in increments.  How the hell do you do that?  Also the idea that someone would just die because they saw advanced technology is silly.  The author claims that if we took a man from 1750 and brought him to the modern day he might just die of shock.  To get a similar situation you would need to get someone from 1750 to 10,000 BC.  Here's the kicker, we have had people interact  with such wildly different levels of technology.  When the English first started to arrive in Australia, they met a people who hadn't developed agriculture.  Their material was about close to that of people in 10,000 BC were were isolated from the rest of humanity for 40,000 years.  These people encounters late 18th century and early 19th century technology.  Those people did not all just drop dead. 

[The Brain]

His source is himself.  Exactly what is an increment of "human progress"?  How do you measure such a thing?

Well you can make predictions based on past progress. You know, like Moore's Law...not actually a law but based on an educated guess.

Moore's law is based on a discrete measurement.  The speed of computers.  "Progress", is far more nebulous.  How do we know the rate of "progress" has increased exponentially rather then linearly over the last 20 years?  To make a graph (which is what this is based on), you need actual numbers to be plotted.  For the numbers to be plotted you need to measure "human progress" in increments.  How the hell do you do that?  Also the idea that someone would just die because they saw advanced technology is silly.  The author claims that if we took a man from 1750 and brought him to the modern day he might just die of shock.  To get a similar situation you would need to get someone from 1750 to 10,000 BC.  Here's the kicker, we have had people interact  with such wildly different levels of technology.  When the English first started to arrive in Australia, they met a people who hadn't developed agriculture.  Their material was about close to that of people in 10,000 BC were were isolated from the rest of humanity for 40,000 years.  These people encounters late 18th century and early 19th century technology.  Those people did not all just drop dead.

Yeah Tasmanians didn't fucking die.

[Admiral Yi]

Can someone please explain to me why I shouldn't send this to deleted thread like all the other nonsense shit spam we get from sock puppets like siege?

Because it's doing no harm.  No one has to read it.  No one has to post in it.

[Martinus]

I gotta say, Dguller's recent description of Siegy's posting style, i.e. as if someone was picking pages from "Flowers of Algernon" at random, must be one of the best and most accurate things I have ever read on Languish.