Re: The Great Filter

Hara Ra (harara@shamanics.com)
Sat, 21 Sep 1996 06:40:55 -0700


Robin Hanson wrote:
>
> N.Bostrom@lse.ac.uk writes:
>
> Eric Watt Forste suggests that the great filter is in the
> step to advanced tool use. What about the objection that
> this step was completed relatively _shortly_ after the
> humanoid monkeys came into existance?
>
> This is a strong objection, I think. I've been researching it.
>
Advanced tool use requires the capacity to entrain and manipulate
extended sequences
of actions. Most pre primate tool usage only entails a few actions,
though often repeated
many times. Here we refer to many different actions. I suspect that
advanced tool use co
evolved with language.

Perhaps the great filter lies ahead. Per the Singularity, I think of how
AIs must be benevolent
and able to contain or eliminate ruthless systems (think of humans and
viruses such as ebola)
or the whole thing comes down. A truly vicious kind of grey goo may be
hard to resist indeed...

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| Hara Ra <harara@shamanics.com> |
| Box 8334 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 |
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