RE: Individuality

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Mar 31 2003 - 17:43:39 MST

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    Nathaneal writes

    > Will people all across the world start to feel powerless? Already I question
    > the amount of impact one person can really make in the world.

    How much power do you think a citizen of China felt in 200 B.C.,
    in a nation of 40 million ruled by an Emperor? Or a citizen of
    Rome at about the same time? People have had literally thousands
    of years to adjust to the idea of being a very small cog in a very
    big machine. Still, it grates on our intuitions, which were
    developed during the hunter-gatherer stage when we lived in very
    small groups.

    > I often wonder if these great technologies such as AI and nanotech
    > will make a "power elite" in the world.

    Oh, this is *exactly* what people have been worrying about, in
    one form or another, since 1986 when Eric Drexler published
    "Engines of Creation".

    But Anders writes

    > The real issue is whether any new technologies would empower
    > elites to a greater extent than ordinary people.

    In my opinion, elites are *already* vastly empowered compared
    to ordinary people, and have been since Sargon the Great
    created the first empire 4500 years ago.

    Anders also says

    > Information technology does not seem to have that effect.

    And here, he is still talking about the same thing that you
    are. My emphasis is different. When I think about "shifts
    of power due to increased technology", runaway AI comes
    right to mind. Now, if runaway nanotech or AI takes over,
    then you'll *really* have a reason to feel powerless, if
    you even have an ability to *feel* at all, and aren't quite
    dead. After all, just what reason should some vastly superior
    AI have for keeping people around?

    These issues compel many to believe that our only chance is
    through exerting every fiber of our being in the project of
    making a beneficent AI who'll protect us from these possible
    developments. You might very well wish to check out Eliezer
    Yudkovsky's writings on our prospects for making a "Friendly AI".
    In a sense, this is the most pro-active position I know of for
    heading off our utter demise. Please see http://singinst.org/

    > Did previous technologies create a power elite group?

    Yes. Chariots introduced in about 1800 B.C. made the bronze
    weapons held by the common soldier almost useless.

         Contemporaneous accounts convey some sense of the
         sheer terror a massed body of unprotected infantry standing
         in a flat desert felt when they confronted hundreds of war
         chariots bearing down on them at high speed...

         Within a few decades, the nomads [who possess the new
         terror weapons] destroyed every military force in the
         region.... they also sought to build elite units of
         charioteers...

    from Science goes to War, p. 17. This book gives many other examples,
    such as the invention of the crossbow. A good crossbowman requited
    years and years of training and practice, and came to be an invincible
    military elite. Invincible, that is, until in 1450 the French mowed
    the bowmen down by the dozens with a brand new terror weapon, the
    cannon. And on and on and on, right up to 1945.

    > I wonder how long the majority of people can be plugged into the matrix.
    > Do you think the majority will be content with virtual reality?

    I think that the average person will be DAMN LUCKY to get something
    so good as virtual reality. I have loudly proclaimed my eagerness
    to be run by any AI that will give me worthwhile experience, and I
    couldn't care less how "artificial" it is. The vastly, vastly bigger
    worry is that you might not be at all.

    I know, if you're under 30, then the prospect of non-existence seems
    like a piddling unconcern. Perhaps we evolved that way so that we
    would instantly lose interest as soon as someone brought up the
    "boring" subject that we will someday die. But for *anyone* reading
    this, logically this should be your number one concern! The way
    things are going, you survived the 20th century, but you will NOT
    survive the 21st century. You will be dead.

    Ho, hum. I can hear the yawns already.

    I give up. Most people are deathoids, born and bred.

    Lee



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