Max More wrote:
>
> I haven't read the piece yet but will have to do so soon. I'm on a private
> Wired magazine email list that includes Bill Joy and others and a
> discussion of his piece is just getting going, with Charles Platt
> criticizing Wired's publication of the piece, with replies so far by Howard
> Rheingold, Stewart Brand, Paul Saffo, and others. Once I've read Joy's
> essay, I'll be joining in. If you have specific questions, comments, or
> criticisms that you'd like conveyed to Bill Joy and the others, please let
> me know. (I will, of course, give appropriate credit.)
>
I have just read the piece, and expect it to be a watershed event. I found it
very well written, and representing a great deal of thought Bill had put in over a
long time. The most important thing about it is that it says to the public, "This
Stuff is Real." Bill may claim that the safeguards mentioned by Eric are not
going to work, but he completely accepts that MNT is coming.
Bill is forced to take Ray seriously because he sees the computational power
projection of the next 30 years. Again, this stuff is real. He does not see
(yet) that self organizing AI is going to get going somewhere, whether we set out
to do that or not. (Daniel Hillis is correct: we will get used to it.)
The main part Bill has not thought through is the big picture. A natural part of
evolution is that species come and go. Homo (you name it) did and so will Homo
Sapiens. We are now past the point of no return. Malthus knew the bio system
could not support our continued growth much longer. We are using up the stored
resources and must have new technical substitutes. The dinosaurs went for
hundreds of millions of years in mindless eat-and-be-eaten lives until an event
they could not be ready for wiped them out.
Bill has also not taken the memes into consideration. Our technology memeplex is
quite powerful, and no one is in control. In any technical race the fact that
something is possible is the most important piece of information. Biology has
shown us what is possible with replicators; extension of this knowledge is
inevitable.
The idea that simple humans are going to strike out into the galaxy is as
mismatched as Fred Flintstone driving a car he pushes with his feet. Bill may
like the Startrek model, but nobody, as stupid as we, are going to build and
inhabit starships. We must modify ourselves to be up to the task that stretches
into the future. There was nothing wrong with being human to get here, but the
idea of the future of humanity cannot be more of the same.
All and all, it is about time for this debate in the general press. Yes, there
will be trouble from this, but it is a coming of age for the concepts we care
about. So, "Don't Panic", hang in there, be positive, but also know the memes are
riding us all, and will not stop.
-Ken
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