Re: CULTURE: Chicago Tribune on Futurists (Includes Extropians)

From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Sun Jan 07 2001 - 00:24:18 MST


> Spike Jones wrote: > My reasoning goes thus: since silicon based
> intelligence...
>
> Eugene.Leitl wrote:There is no silicon based intelligence now, I doubt there
> will ever
> be. Silicon doesn't do intricate stable 3d structures very well, so
> it probably has to be carbon (check out latest http://sciencemag.org).

Hmmm. I didnt make this clear at all. I dont mean make a 3D
brain outta silicon. I meant a silicon microprocessor running a
simulation of carbon-based brain cells. I suppose the first time
we make a real silicon based sim of a brain, it would run much
slower than realtime, perhaps one millionth as fast. It would be
not much of a conversationalist. At first.

> > based intelligence have different diets and different habitats...
>
> Same diet: energy and atoms to build your substrate. Same energy, (mostly)
> same atoms. Same habitat: surface of the Earth, at least initially.
> Houston, we seem to have a problem.

But also a solution. We can run AI in geosynchronous orbit
with restricted downlink.

> Exactly: we don't know what will happen.
>
> > will happen if we fail to develop nanotech and/or AI. spike
>
> Yes, lowtech scenarios are more easily understandable, and none
> of them look very pretty nor sustainable.

'Gene we have then two alternatives: one unknown and one
unabiguously bad. I choooooose... the unknown.

Actually, this whole thread has been tremendously insightful.
Given the two choices, I personally would choose taking
my chances with a possibly hostile AI than simply dying the
old fashioned way. Yet if I had heirs, I see the point
of view of the Luddites, who would prefer to relinquish
technology and hand a low-tech world to their children
and grandchildren. I myself see the entire exercise as
pointless if they too are to grow old and die. Yet I can
see where some may logically disagree. spike



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