RE: Why will we reach the singularity?

From: nanowave (nanowave@shaw.ca)
Date: Sun Mar 02 2003 - 10:44:15 MST

  • Next message: Joao Magalhaes: "RE: Why will we reach the singularity?"

    Spudboy writes:

    Russell Evermore stated:
    <<Fact: You haven't read the Age of Spiritual Machines carefully enough, or
    <<have utterly failed to grasp the significance of the "Law of Accelerating
    <<Returns".

    <Do you really think that Kurzweil's conjecture is wholly accurate? Perhaps
    technological progress is a mixture of fits and <starts, driven by money,
    politics, pure serendipty, and the quality of work performed by any given
    researcher. Perhaps it <take far longer than Kurzweil concludes, despite
    progress?

    I don't think Kurzweil himself presumes his conjecture is "wholly accurate".
    HowEver, I believe he has made an exceptionally good effort at articulating
    a CONSERVATIVE forecast. The more appropriate questions to be asking right
    are perhaps: What if his conjecture is 60% accurate? 70% accurate? Or, HOLY
    SHIT, 80% accurate? As far as I can see, even if he's 50% accurate, we'd
    better hold on to our hats.

    What many don't seem to be considering is the completely unprecedented
    consilient effects that IT and the Internet are now having on the entire
    process of technological evolution as a whole. The Internet is just the
    spark before the conflagration. It's like we're all dancing around in a room
    with palm sized chunks of fissionable material. We bang into each other now
    and again and say: "Oh my! That was warm . . . funny that. Still, nothing
    compared to the awesome power that's packed into a single stick of dynamite
    eh!"

    Anyone care to bet on the exact month when the term "nano" firsts appear in
    a Future Shop, or Staples flyer? I've been watching!

    What I'm suggesting here is that the things we might want to pay close
    attention to may have nothing to do with how fast medicine seems to be
    advancing at the present moment, or whether Moore will hold for another two
    decades, or whether we have figured out a cure for AIDS. Criticality is just
    a property of critical mass.

    Why do we anthropomorphically presume that GENERAL HUMAN LEVEL computer
    intelligence is required to trigger a singularity? It seems to me that once
    software attains the advanced pattern recognition ability to read,
    comprehend, and intelligently connect information in novel ways that
    generate subsequent generations of innovative solutions, we will be well on
    our way. That ability might prove to be not all that different from playing
    world class chess.

    Oops, was that yesterday? Oh right. Not quite tomorrow.

    Think about it:

    Unprecedented interconnection of human/machine intelligence.
    Unprecedented interconnection of human/machine intelligence.
    Unprecedented interconnection of human/machine intelligence.

    Your governments are thinking about it.

    Say it over and over until it really sinks in deep. Then you may begin to
    understand what Sting should have meant (but probably didn't) when he wrote:
    "History will teach us nothing."

    Russell Evermore



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