Terry W. Colvin wrote:
>
>Professor Hugo de Garis, physicist, lately of Melbourne and now of Kyoto
>in Japan, fears that his experiments may ultimately lead to the
>extermination of the human race. What do you think?
I had the chance to talk a bit with Hugo at one of Forrest Bishop's parties
a few years back. Even then he was shooting for a cybernetic cat by 2001,
so it seems he is right on track.
To answer the question: if Hugo de Garis truly feared for the extermination
of the human race, do you really think that he would be plotting the
creation of superior AI? I doubt it. The problem with the writers of some
of these articles is that they are too myopic: they cannot see that
scientific progress occurs in a number of areas at once. On its own,
superior AI could mean the extermination of the human race; however, in
truth, there are many advances being made in nanotech, genetic engineering,
space travel and a plethora of other "perpetual human longevity" pursuits.
The question will be whether or not we can keep up to AI; I, for one, don't
think so.
If Hugo and others succeed in creating superior AI, some humans will
probably try to co-exist, but it would be most convenient for the majority
of the human race to eventually leave the planet. My target date for this
is for about 2070, though that will probably need to be modified if Hugo
actually does succeed at Robokitty.
As an aside, I personally think superior AI is the key to solving most
other extropic problems such as space travel etc.
-------------------------------------------------------
E. Shaun Russell Extropian, Musician, ExI Member
e_shaun@uniserve.com <KINETICIZE *YOUR* POTENTIAL>
Hear my music at: http://www.mp3.com/eshaunrussell
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"The creation of the future is in the creation of the present"
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