CYMM writes:
> CYMM SAYS: Eugene it won't work. Betcha writing hyperintelligent AI is more
> addictive than heroin. If you can't stop people from writing klutzy computer
> viruses - how are you going to stop them from writing AI?
You can't stop them completely, but you can impose severe penalties,
establishing deterrence, and create some infrastructure allowing you
to detect and truncate worms in an early stage. Simple traffic pattern
analysis will already help a lot. You'll see a node hitting other
nodes with perversion packets (some of this will consist of varying
traffic, trying to find a new hole), and some of those hit with a
packet repeat same behaviour after a time. After it has found a good
solution, the system will use the same packet for the same system
type, so you could in principle filter it in realtime. You'll have to
segment the Net, and use sanity checks, and remote
(crypto-authenticated) restore to sane state, and the like. Of course
the worm will adapt to countermeasures, but at least you will make it
less easy.
By reducing nucleation frequency and reducing the amount of
computational resources available you can obviously reduce the
risk. Whether it will be enough in end, who knows.
> And ...AI doesn't have to be very smart to be ultra destructive. The human
> authour just has to be a psychopath, is all.
In fact, a dumb yet truly mutable worm can sustainably shut down the
net essentially for good. As long as there's a single infected node,
reinfection is assured. The only way to combat this is 100% correct
software (obviously impossible) or adaptively evolving immune system
software, which will be based on the same principle which has enabled
the worm, eventually ascertaining an equilibrium.
> CYMM SAYS: If he were a physical & sovereign state, maybe. But such a
No, I would literally nuke individual facilities, if a convincing
threat is present. I'd say that should be a standard operating
procedure in responses to Armageddon class threats. Colour me Vinge's
Peacer, I guess.
> strategy hasn't been deployed with the drug production of Andean South
> America... and I daresay it never will. Far less for, say, 20,000 or so 21
> year olds scattered through university dorms and living rooms the world
> over.
Did you knew that they've started outlawing free Unices in selected
college dorms?
> If it's possible - then humans may have to live with its inevitability.
>
> You may even see a whole cult of mind hackers by 2010. Whole multi terabyte
> hard drives (...or whatever...) with seriously camouflage-encrypted binaries
> that are decrypted on the fly. The cult of superhuman intelligence is
> enthralling... once it is practically realizeable - it will become a
> religion.
>
> Do you think you can fight religion? And win?
>
> You're talking about the "Artilect Wars" all over again. But this is a
> dirty, Vietnam-style war.... where people defend their God-given "right" to
> create God with a seething, righteous passion. Should be fun if you're into
> war.
I'm not. I don't like where the logics of it all is leading us. There
must be a more constructive way out.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:39:24 MDT