X-Message-Number: 12567 Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 23:20:22 -0700 From: Olaf Henny <> Subject: We may become ourseves quite formidable I have been quite busy lately and not been able to keep up to date with the CryoNet postings, so forgive me, if I go back a few days: In Message #12529 Thomas Donaldson wrote: >I have no doubt that someday we'll be able to make an entirely artificial >creature which can also value and feel (if we choose to do so, though >that's not obvious). I'm not arguing about the possibility of artificial >intelligence, either. I'm simply pointing out that intelligence, >artificial or not, simply isn't enough. If we made intelligent devices >with no independent ability to value or feel or have any particular >purposes, then they will basically react to us as present computers do: >we ask them to do something, they try to do it and tell us the results. It is quite possible, that we will become quite formidable ourselves. Theory: Ralph Merkle estimated, that a nano-computer of one megabyte including power source and circuits would occupy about one cubic micrometer. Fact: The main part of the Aussie sniffer is a switch, which measures 1.5 nanometers. Assuming that the 1.5 NM holds for all three dimensions, we could stack about three hundred million of those things into a cubic micrometer, giving us roughly 6x10^8 bits or 73 MB. Of course there is a whole lot more required for a computer, but in one MB worth of these switches, which are already available today would only occupy 1.4% of that cubic micrometer, leaving a lot of room for the rest of Ralph Merkle's hardware. It seems to this my in these matters uneducated fellow, that Ralph Merkle was conservative, if anything. Fact: NASA has already developed a technology, which enables a lady through pure thought picked up by sensors attached to her scull to simulate the landing of a large jet liner, complete with manipulating the heavy machinery, which represented the equipment actually involved in a real world landing. Conjecture: You stack one billion of Ralph's 1MB computers into 1mm^3, the size of a small sugar grain, and you have a one million GB storage memory. How many of these little things can you stick into my cranial cavity without cramming the brain, and how many would it take to hold all the information contained today in the world's libraries. Now if you can refine the computer-mind interface, which has so crudely demonstrated by NASA, to make all that information directly available to me, I would present quite a challenge to overcome by an artificial intelligence. I would like to hear some arguments, why the above suggestions are less probable or would take longer to arrive than AI. Best, Olaf Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12567