Re: Genetic transition to posthumanism

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Apr 30 2001 - 01:02:10 MDT


The quote seems garbled, but it seems Eliezer on 27 April 2001 @ 02:42
may have said:
> Genetics is too slow to have any impact, and receives little or no
> mention among knowledgeable transhumanists.

Huh, so now I'm not "knowledgeable"? :-)

I'll second Anders and say -- I too do mention it.

As I get further along in the ideas for my patents, I see a clearer
and clearer path here and I'm reasonably certain you are going to
be *amazed* at what genetic engineering will do in this decade.
Unless Moore's law goes through a significant speed-up (I will
freely admit that Intel seems to be trying to drive it in this
direction with EUVL and IBM may pull a rabbit out of the hat with
molecular electronics), you will not have the power available before
the end of the decade to run even a sub-human AI.

If Robert Freitas and/or Jim Von Ehr II is correct you should begin
to have diamondoid nanoassembly sometime between 2005-2010 (which
is going to unleash the floodgates of nanoengineering).

So unless something "magical" happens it appears the path is
definately:
  biotech -> biotech enabled nanotech -> 'real' nanotech -> AI

I would not bet against an "AI jack-in-the-box" but I wouldn't
place all my money on it either.

Robert



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