Re: Singularity: The Moore's Law Argument

GBurch1@aol.com
Fri, 18 Sep 1998 19:10:28 EDT

In a message dated 98-09-18 18:37:41 EDT, Robin Hanson wrote:

> Does *anyone* reading this other than 

> Eliezer think that Eliezer's first post constitutes such a persuasive
> technical analysis?

Isn't the problem that a key term in all of these discussions, "intelligence" (appearing in such other key terms as "human equivalence", "augmentation", etc.), is simply not well understood at this point? The proponents of a "singularity" all seem to have this concept built into their basic schema of super-acceleration in the sense that they assume that "intelligence" can be replicated in a machine and then, once replicated, enhanced. I'm sure that essentially every subscriber to this list would agree with that general assertion. But, until this essential factor is more subject to quantification, I doubt that analysis of the rigor you are seeking, Robin, is possible. That doesn't make the discussion pointless, it just makes it less precise than we might like.

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