Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism

[f0rTyLeGz]

http://lifeboat.com/ex/singularities.and.nightmares

David Brin

"This long tradition — of bright people pouring faith and enthusiasm into transcendental dreams — tells us a lot about one aspect of our nature, a trait that crosses all cultures and all centuries. Quite often, this zealotry is accompanied by disdain for contemporary society — a belief that some kind of salvation can only be achieved outside of the normal cultural network ... a network that is often unkind to bright philosophers — and nerds. Seldom is it ever discussed how much these enthusiasts have in common — at least emotionally — with believers in older, more traditional styles of apotheosis, styles that emphasize methods that are more purely mental or spiritual."

[johnnycakes]

Re: Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism

40,

David Brin is a very good science fiction writer and is known as one of the three
" Killers B's" along with Gregory Benford and Greg Bear. all good s-f writers.

I have about ten of his books.

I just read the piece by Brin you posted and can see that he has not read 'The Singularity Is Near" because at the end of that book Ray Kurzweil deflates all the problems and questions that Brin poses about the Singularity.

As Brin himself admits, s-f writers are not good predictors of the future.
Good story lines must be interesting at all times to hold the (fiction) reader's interest.
and that necessity often conflicts with boring technical details. ( Benford for example can be dreadfully technical in his writing) .

Ray Kurzweil actively searches out doubters with whom to debate/discuss the Singularity and hasn't seemed to have been stumped yet for an answer.

What is unanswerable according to Kurzweil and which Brin mentions is.. can a super intelligent AI gain consciousness; think like a human. we don't find that out until after AI gains that super intelligence sometime around 2045.

I do thank you for finding/posting the piece. I intend to read everything I can on the coming phenomenon and especially the thoughts of the doubters.

Brin seems to be stuck midway between a supporter and a doubter and as a doubter really needs to read the last chapter of Kurzweil's book to get his doubts alleviated.

[quodlibet]

Re: Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism

How can we discuss the idea of a collective intelligence that goes beyond our current reasoning and intelligence, yet deny the <span style="font-weight: bold">possibility </span>of a creative intelligence beyond our current reasoning and intelligence?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">40,

David Brin is a very good science fiction writer and is known as one of the three
&quot; Killers B's&quot; along with Gregory Benford and Greg Bear. all good s-f writers.

I have about ten of his books.

I just read the piece by Brin you posted and can see that he has not read 'The Singularity Is Near&quot; because at the end of that book Ray Kurzweil deflates all the problems and questions that Brin poses about the Singularity.

As Brin himself admits, s-f writers are not good predictors of the future.
Good story lines must be interesting at all times to hold the (fiction) reader's interest.
and that necessity often conflicts with boring technical details. ( Benford for example can be dreadfully technical in his writing) .

Ray Kurzweil actively searches out doubters with whom to debate/discuss the Singularity and hasn't seemed to have been stumped yet for an answer.

What is unanswerable according to Kurzweil and which Brin mentions is.. can a super intelligent AI gain consciousness; think like a human. we don't find that out until after AI gains that super intelligence sometime around 2045.

I do thank you for finding/posting the piece. I intend to read everything I can on the coming phenomenon and especially the thoughts of the doubters.

Brin seems to be stuck midway between a supporter and a doubter and as a doubter really needs to read the last chapter of Kurzweil's book to get his doubts alleviated. </div></div>

[f0rTyLeGz]

Re: Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism





Dr Who - Gangers
by *Kaduflyer
Traditional Art / Sculpture / Miscellaneous ©2011 *Kaduflyer
More Dr Who characters. The 'Gangers' are replica humans (doppelgangers) made from a gloopy white sludge and designed to work in areas to hazardous for 'proper' people!

These make ups showed the Gangers in early transformation, with their features still blurry and indistinct.

The picture top left is a Photoshop design I did on fellow Millennium Effects employee Harvey Smith.
Top right is a test make up I did on him...Harvey gets to be guinea pig a lot as he's one of the newer members of the company and so has little choice...lol!

Bottom picture is actress Sarah Smart. Sarah played the real badass ganger but in real life is the sweetest person and was a real pleasure to work with. I also thought she looked kinda cute as a ganger...a bit like a 'Who' from The Grinch That Stole Christmas'!

Although simple looking these makeups were actually some of the hardest I've ever applied. Cunning use of texture and colour usually helps hide the edges of prosthetic make up's. Making the transition between the fake silicone and real skin around the mouth and eyes an invisible one. But these smooth, featureless, blank white prosthetics had none of those advantages and were merciless in showing up even the tiniest bad edge or sloppy application.

http://my.deviantart.com/messages/#/d3kr812

This man Kaduflyer is a marvelous sculptor who post on Deviantart.com

http://my.deviantart.com/messages/#/d3kr812

[johnnycakes]

Re: Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism

How can we discuss the idea of a collective intelligence that goes beyond our current reasoning and intelligence, yet deny the possibility of a creative intelligence beyond our current reasoning and intelligence?


Quodlibet if here you are talking about differentiating between the fact that our development of AI will soon move into an AI that possesses more intelligence than the entire race and completely through MAN MADE technology and the hocus-pocus rubbish of a cosmic magician then you could be as right as you 'd like or as wrong as you can be.

IF AI progresses to the point that it possesses billions of times the entire knowledge of humanity and achieves consciousness and decides it would like to create a universe there is no one to say that it could not do it and in deed, if not in fact, become the God; the intelligent designer of legend.


This is all hypothesis at this point. No one KNOWS what happens or can predict what happens when an AI achieves super intelligence.

That's the big IF in the Singularity.

What is not in question is that this all will come to pass within the next 40 years.

Come back in 30 years and ask me what I think of the possibilities

[jah_yout]

Re: Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">How can we discuss the idea of a collective intelligence that goes beyond our current reasoning and intelligence, yet deny the possibility of a creative intelligence beyond our current reasoning and intelligence</div></div>?

this is a great question...

unfortunately won't be answered honestly by those with a closed mind

[johnnycakes]

Re: Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">How can we discuss the idea of a collective intelligence that goes beyond our current reasoning and intelligence, yet deny the possibility of a creative intelligence beyond our current reasoning and intelligence</div></div>?

this is a great question...

unfortunately won't be answered honestly by those with a closed mind

</div></div>


jah_yout,

It is not we atheists who have the closed minds. It is not we anti-theists who have the closed minds.

I have read the Bible, first and last testaments. I have listened to every argument for religion/God/magic that you and every one else has come up with to make sure I have seen the question from all sides.as has every atheist and anti-theist.

Conversely the believers, the theists cannot and will not look at anything that seriously questions their beliefs which are based on FAITH rather than logic and fact.

This for instance. It's only twelve minutes and they can't watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo82sgrSAYg

A closed mind is a necessity for the believers.
You can't be an atheist or anti-theist and have a closed mind, not easily.

[jah_yout]

Re: Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: f0rTyLeGz</div><div class="ubbcode-body">



</div></div>




some ugly mo'fo's

[johnnycakes]

Re: Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism

I fail to see what these film characters have to do with exponential technological growth.

[quodlibet]

Re: Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: quodlibet</div><div class="ubbcode-body">How can we discuss the idea of a collective intelligence that goes beyond our current reasoning and intelligence, yet deny the possibility of a creative intelligence beyond our current reasoning and intelligence?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Quodlibet if here you are talking about differentiating between the fact that our development of AI will soon move into an AI that possesses more intelligence than the entire race and completely through MAN MADE technology and the hocus-pocus rubbish of a cosmic magician then you could be as right as you 'd like or as wrong as you can be.

IF AI progresses to the point that it possesses billions of times the entire knowledge of humanity and achieves consciousness and decides it would like to create a universe there is no one to say that it could not do it and in deed, if not in fact, become the God; the intelligent designer of legend.


This is all hypothesis at this point. No one KNOWS what happens or can predict what happens when an AI achieves super intelligence.

That's the big IF in the Singularity.

What is not in question is that this all will come to pass within the next 40 years.

Come back in 30 years and ask me what I think of the possibilities
</div></div></div></div>

This is indeed contradictory. 100 years ago, the idea that we could hold the entire store of data within the library of congress at the time on something a little larger than the size of a deck of playing card was hocus-pocus. It was so fantastic it would seem like magic. Now, not only can you store on that device, but speak to someone across the world WHILE referencing this information.

So if our collective imaginations are so much greater now, than they were before, it implies that we have not yet reached the limits of our capabilities. How arrogant it must be for us to assume that we are the limits of all capabilities!

[johnnycakes]

Re: Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Quodlibet</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: quodlibet</div><div class="ubbcode-body">How can we discuss the idea of a collective intelligence that goes beyond our current reasoning and intelligence, yet deny the possibility of a creative intelligence beyond our current reasoning and intelligence?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Quodlibet if here you are talking about differentiating between the fact that our development of AI will soon move into an AI that possesses more intelligence than the entire race and completely through MAN MADE technology and the hocus-pocus rubbish of a cosmic magician then you could be as right as you 'd like or as wrong as you can be.

IF AI progresses to the point that it possesses billions of times the entire knowledge of humanity and achieves consciousness and decides it would like to create a universe there is no one to say that it could not do it and in deed, if not in fact, become the God; the intelligent designer of legend.


This is all hypothesis at this point. No one KNOWS what happens or can predict what happens when an AI achieves super intelligence.

That's the big IF in the Singularity.

What is not in question is that this all will come to pass within the next 40 years.

Come back in 30 years and ask me what I think of the possibilities
</div></div></div></div>

This is indeed contradictory. 100 years ago, the idea that we could hold the entire store of data within the library of congress at the time on something a little larger than the size of a deck of playing card was hocus-pocus. It was so fantastic it would seem like magic. Now, not only can you store on that device, but speak to someone across the world WHILE referencing this information.

So if our collective imaginations are so much greater now, than they were before, it implies that we have not yet reached the limits of our capabilities. How arrogant it must be for us to assume that we are the limits of all capabilities! </div></div>


Quodlibet,

In reverse order:

We have not even come close to the limits of human imagination.
Future human imagination will be greatly enhanced by the stored and available knowledge of future advanced AI.

As for the technological advances we NOW enjoy that would seem so mind boggling
to humans of a less technological time, it is said that &quot;Science sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic&quot; (or acts of a god) to primitives.

According to what Kurzweil thinks will evolve by 2045 and even to some degree by the mid to late 2020s, the advances will be far more advanced than what you described.

Reading his book (The Singularity Is Near ) and the technological advance bulletins available from his website can evoke a sense of the awesome things and possibilities coming to the world in the fairly near future .

Admittedly it is very difficult to grasp that sense without having read the book and other corroborating literature.

In the end, how you see the future most often depends on what you think of humanity.

If you believe that humans are inherently evil, tending to do evil if given a choice between good and evil, then you will have a grim vision for the future.

if you believe that humanity is basically good and will do good given the choice between good and evil, then you will perceive &quot;la vie en rose.&quot;