X-Message-Number: 15902 Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 00:00:20 -0500 From: James Swayze <> Subject: Regarding responses to Singularity Bah Humbug! References: <> Hello all, Sorry for the delay but this took some time to compose. See below responses to the following. CryoNet wrote: > CryoNet - Sun 18 Mar 2001 > > #15878: [off topic] Singularity... Bah Humbug! [Eugene.Leitl] > #15879: savants; happiness [Ettinger] > #15880: Re: [off topic] Singularity... Bah Humbug! [Scott Badger] > #15882: Re:{off topic] Singularity...Bah Humbug! [Brian Phillips] > #15885: Re: [off topic] Singularity... Bah Humbug! [Damien Broderick] _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Eugene Leitl angrily wrote: > It must be a nice universe to inhabit, one that conforms to your beliefs > and expectations. I could say the same for you. Eugene I have the greatest respect for you. Have since I first began reading your posts and learning from you. So I'm perplexed at the need for the tone of anger I perceive in your response to my criticism of whether Super AI will be considered godlike and help cause the dangerous possibly humanity extinction causing flavor of Singularity scenarios. I am certain your IQ is far greater than my mere 150 and I know you are more educated than I. So does superiority breed contempt? Sure looks that way, yes? Sort of proves one of my points, huh? > > science and grew out of it. It was a little traumatic. I now am fully atheist. > > So, you're now of the opposite persuasion? Not following you here. Are you asking me if I'm opposite of believing in god, magic, religion, irrationality? I thought I made it clear I was. Why was it necessary to highlight this part of the issue in your efforts to counter my position regarding super AI. I don't see it as germane to the topic of whether you agree with me or not that Super AI will be godlike. It has a mean feel to it. So who's being a troll now? > > And I didn't go through all that just to end up bowing down some goddamn god of > > our own making!! Machine AI!! Bah!! Bear with me before getting upset at me for > > This seems a rather simplistic view. Oh really? So you don't believe Super AI in any way deserves to considered or is considered in some circles as possibly godlike? Wait a minute I think I have a quote from someone I respect very much and consider way above me in intellect, ability and knowledge. " I think that (apart from the means of production themselves) computronium will be first mass produced output of nanotechnology of any flavour. And it will be certainly used for AI applications, ALife-style. I think a metric ton of computronium is a pretty useful DIY godhead toolkit. If imprinted with the right virtual machine pattern, I (quite rightfully) feel insignificant in comparision to that thing." I like the part about "godhead toolkit". Has this anything to do with Super AI being considered demigod like? Who could have said this. Oh shit...it was you!! > There's no point in introducing an > artificial Us/Them polarity. Huh? I wonder if some would apply the Us/Them polarity to the Neanderthal/Cromagnon polarity. So you don't believe in evolution? Let's see. Do you agree that Super AI could possibly develop self awareness? Do you disagree that an entity that has self awareness will understand and so prefer existence over nothingness? Do you disagree that something considered an entity and self aware may also be considered a new species? Do you disagree that different species on this planet have a history of competition? Do you agree that Super AI would be superior to us if we are sans augmentation? Oops, wait a minute it seems you do! "I think that...[sic] I (quite rightfully) feel insignificant in comparison to that thing." So would you not agree that the current top species (us), that "need resources like matter and energy", might need to compete with the new and superior species that will just happen to also "need resources like matter and energy"? What's the obvious conclusion here? To me it is simply that we could never trust the machine. > There's no point in introducing an event horizont > either, as an observer traversing an event horizont of a spacetime singularity doesn't > notice a damn thing. A late stage of an exponential is still smooth and > contiguous. It's just, well, ramping up like crazy. Like Thomas Donaldson says I don't think you can apply infinity evoking imagery to this issue. We certainly aren't dealing with relativistic time dilation when considering the rapid rise of knowledge and technology. We are submersed in it not distant observers either. > Mahattan might look like magic to an australopithecine. You think we (the science aware community) are still so gullible as to mistake high tech for magic? I don't. I only use terms such as godlike to describe the situation of being helpless before something we'll hardly be able to fully comprehend if we each are not upgraded personally. > Though a lot > of change is being packed into increasingly shorter stretches of time, > you can still keep current, if you choose to. Just don't get left behind. That's my point. The only way to stay current is augment OUR intelligence. > > being a luddite, I certainly am not. I'm all for AI, just not machine AI. I got > > Huh? > Huh? Back. I know you are more than smart enough to know I was referring to "artificial" augmentation. You were just being a pill to say "huh?". Play fair. > You must have seen "The Forbin Project" one time too many. Never saw it. I'm careful to protect my meme space. I prefer to make my own conclusions about the future based on what I come to know of reality and applying common sense and logic. > > "The last word uttered by mankind > > will be, What's this button do?". > > Strange, I thought it was "Uh-oh". Now you're being simply troll-ish. This certainly has nothing to do with the subject of your disapproval of my post and of my opinion but you decide yet to vent your anger towards it and me by quibbling over my quote? FYI, it's from the "Moon Base 3" (if I recall the name correctly) British TV series and it IS as I said. It made an impression on me so I commited it to very long term memory though the show's name apparently was not deemed so important. You were being pill again. > > Does AI have to be machine? I don't think so. Why trust super intelligence to > > Hint: the A in AI stands for Artificial. Umm, hint back at you. Recipe, natural intelligence + artificial augmentation (IMHO) = artificial intelligence. How closely did you really read my post? Too angry that I stepped on your cherished memes? Must have really threatened them for such vitriol to result, eh? > > some inhuman meachine. If not human they'll no doubt end up competing with us for > > resources and we'll lose. Superiority breeds contempt more often than altruism. > > That's a distinct possibility. Ok, one if it is, why risk it? If you believe so, if you do, why are you part of the problem? One possibility I would agree with is perhaps you wish to help guide it so to avoid the dangerous out of control possibilities. So I have to ask you a question especially after this statement by you. "I (quite rightfully) feel insignificant in comparison to that thing." If you are so certain we'll be inferior why would you choose to be inferior if you had a choice to be otherwise? Which would you rather be superhuman almost godlike or inferior serf to a Super AI machine demigod? I choose to improve me and my kind. > > Don't make machines smarter than us, it's colossal stupid!! Make us smarter > > instead. Use any means available and then some. Use artificial means, use natural > > I agree here. However, some people are stupid, and *like it*. See we do agree on some things so why all the fuss? Or am I included in those that "*like it*"? > > means, use directed evolution and genetic manipulation. Put the AI inside each of > > us. If we can indeed someday link human neurons usefully to digital data devices > > then do so and then link us all together. Each of us a single processor in a 6+ > > billion strong and growing multiprocessing super computer. > > Good advice, let's go Borg. Borg? Being a pill again, eh? So you would accept Hollywood's interpretation over science? Hey, I like Star Trek and have the greatest respect for Gene Roddenberry but let's face it he missed the boat when he failed to recognize that "his" transporter technology would mean immortality. Just send the bad bits to a buffer and let the computer replace with whatever necessary to fill the pattern with the correct material. Got cancer or aging effects? Go into transporter, come out without. No brainer. The only excuse for Roddenberry not using it is that it would have changed the whole meme of the series and be too controversial at the time. I will not limit my imagination to Hollywood's opinion. So why would Hollywood's horrifying concept of Borgism (the show requires a bad guy antagonist) have to be the only possibility? My following comment applies also to Scott Badger's response regarding AI dissemination. I don't feel that the reality of the most likely scenario would be that the first person augmented with AI would be the one to become the super AI demigod to then rush off to prevent all others. Just look to what's happening in reality and consider carefully economics. Everyone is slowly moving to personal wireless computing and communication right now. Soon we'll have wearables, you must have seen them advertised as the next step. The next logical step after wearables is VERY personal computing as in embedded inside the body. Being connected to the net is part of the equation already. Why would that change? If mutual connectivity is Borg than, too late, we already ARE Borg! Let's not forget that Borg is slang for Cyborg and by definition we arguably already are cyborg through dependence on technology. Some of us more than others. I depend on pain relief delivery straight to my spine and literally would quickly be in danger of death or stroke via extreme blood pressure spiking without the little robotic device in my abdomen andI also need a wheelchair. I am by definition a cyborg already. Regarding dissemination of augmentation one must consider the economics involved. It's not likely that business would spend vast funds to develop personal AI augmentation just to have the first person to use it prevent them selling it to everyone else. They'll be wanting to make customers of as many or all of us as is possible. It will happen slowly just like the dissemination of electronic calculators, PC'S, cell phones and etc. Once only a few had them and they cost a fortune. Now just about everyone, their uncle and every other teenager has one. Same will be the case for augmentation and it's logically accompanying mutual connectivity. Star Trekish murderous Borgs? Not necessarily. > I wouldn't be saying "ever", not at this day and age. Whatever (and whenever) > nanotechnology is going to deliver, molecular circuitry will be hitting the > streets first. It's a question of 1) raw switches 2) the right architecture. > We'll be certainly getting gadzillion of affordable switches, and there are > rather srong clues about the right architecture, so essentially it's a > question of time. So the race is on between personal augmentation versus building a Jupiter brain eh? I think the economics involved favors augmentation. > Get rid of your anthropocentrism. Why should I? I'm proud to be human. The definition will evolve but we'll still be human regardless of form. > Biology is not going to stay a constant, but nor > are machines going to. "machine", "most efficient algorithm", "duplicate that over > and over", "hidden flaws", "must kill all humans". Puh-leeze. I could flip all > the sentiments 180 degrees to an anti-human bias, and it would ring just as true. > Truer, if anything. Firstly I apparently am too dense to figure out your syntax above could you word it differently for me please? Honestly I'm missing your point above. > > We have hidden abilities that put computers to shame. Now one caveat. I can't > > Little disagreement here, if you mean current computers. > > Actually, if you'd let every second neuron in your brain vanish tracelessly, > you'd probably not notice a lot of difference, apart from some degradation. Do you have any actual proof of this? Have experiments been done to a real human being that removed every other neuron? > You may notice that idiot savants typically excel at a single task. Not true. Many can both calendar count and do other savant things such as calculate prime numbers lightening fast along with their primary savant skill. Didn't you go to the link I gave and read the rest of the data? These things were covered in the linked articles. > You might > have heard about a recent result (reference lost in mailbox upstream) where a > focused disruption (using transcranial magnetic stimulation) produced > idiot-savant-like effects in normal adults. Firstly, the derogatory "idiot" term part of the old description has been dropped and it's called Savant Syndrome. Furthermore, had you, Eugene, gone to the link I provided or merely read the part of the article I included from the link or indeed read more closely the accompanying footnotes of my post you would have answered the above question for yourself. Yes I am aware of that experiment, it is the crux of my point! Yes savants are very narrowly skilled but not necessarilly singly. The whole point of the new research is that the ability to function socially displaces partially the ability to concentrate so deeply on and hence reinforce the savant skill. Thus, the twin involved who once could calendar count and as well calculate prime numbers could not so readily later in life after learning more social skills. The hope is to find a way to allow us to temporarily tap into those primal abilities by temporarily turning off the skills that displace the savant skills. I assumed everyone here would imagine a way that augmentation via nano or chip interface and all the other sexy tech in our future might possibly help facilitate this so and I didn't express my case completely enough. > > Quantum laser turns electron wave into (computer) memory > > Yawn. The idiot press once again misunderstood something quite profoundly. > Again did you even read the link? Idiot press? I think all the "idiot press" did was report what the experimenter provided them. Don't shoot the messenger. > > Nanotech should be able to reduce the size of a quantum laser electron hard drive > > to oh maybe the size of a dime or even the head of a pin. They'll be the rage! > > You should be reading up on some of that fancy Schroedinger stuff. Like a wavefunction > trapped in a periodic boundary conditions/box, and the size of the box. Measurement, > collapse of the wavefunction, and the like. I haven't heard of this. Can you give me a link please? As I said you are much more capable than I. Could you help me understand if this is capable of "infinite storage" like the Quantum Laser Electron Memory experiment was reported to be "possibly" capable of? Then, if so, why this method of "infinite storage" (wavefunction trapped in a periodic boundary conditions/box) is preferable over the other method of "infinite storage". How much more than infinite does one need? Obviously I'm not informed enough to form an opinion. I only suggested one possibility. I didn't presume to exclude any others. If this is better than so be it, whatever works. > Nano doesn't allow you to run rings around quantum mechanics, unfortunately. Not qualified to comment. Not sure what you are referring to. > What's wrong with old-fashioned molecular memory? Just guessing, Maybe size and heat. Again not really qualified to make a solid opinion. I just assumed that if there are people working on better, quicker, more capacity systems than molecular, such as those mentioned by you and by me, that they know what they are doing and had good enough reason to do so. Just an ole country boy's common sense approach. > What makes you think your work and play will not be so demanding, as to > require you to use whatever computational resources are at your disposal? I was imaging a low demand scenario. Certainly a human based super computer could achieve quite a lot during a high demand peak where perhaps, where safe to do so, as many as possible would dedicate full capability to the the problem. I also assumed a more leisurely environment with machines performing all manual labor. It wasn't an absolute. It was merely a suggestion for a tiny fraction of possible human activity and computing ability. Again I apologize for leaving it to everyone's imagination to fill in the blanks. > Gravity? Who needs it? That's funny, you compare the Vingeian Singularity with the natural law of gravity. Teehee. You make a funny. Me laughing ass off. In other words I can't believe you meant it. I certainly wouldn't characterize the "Spike" (I prefer that term) as an immutable law of the physical universe. > You can't do much as a single person. One can do what I am doing, provoke thought and debate. > > P.S. I have an answer for the oh so scary nano grey goo as well and it doesn't > > entail avoiding nanotech just the how to appraoch. > Oh, everything is easy. Except when it isn't. Question, without knowing anything about the details of my opinion/idea why would you make any comment? Being a pill again? Well to me it is easy. But what do I know? Guess I'm in my own little universe again. However, someone agrees with me that is high up in nano circles. What I referred to is only my opinion of how nano should first be achieved. I don't claim to be the first to have thought of this nor by any stretch an expert, but here goes. I see no need for outrageous computing power such as AI to achieve beginning nanotech if we follow nature's even human nature's precedents. Ok, on to the nuts and bolts. Trying to make each single nanobot capable of doing every job possible in the list of all possible jobs for nanobots would take huge amounts of computing power, yes? Nanobots capable of doing every job possible are in some circles also hoped to be capable of self replication, yes? In some circles the ability to self replicate could, if something goes terribly wrong, lead to gray goo meltdown and the destruction of everything, yes? With me so far? Any disagreement? So don't make them capable of self replication. Make nanobots in a huge variety of species capable of only one or two jobs each. Orchestrate them via an ant like or human military like hierarchy template. Example: Suppose we need to remove some potassium from something. We order via squad leaders and lieutenants and captains the potassium loving, K type, nanobots (perhaps potassium loving due to a lock and key shape of their manipulator arms) to do the one job the K types were built for. The squad leaders each oversee perhaps a dozen K type bots perhaps more. These squad leaders handle navigation and maybe the when and how much issue. Or perhaps yet higher up the hierarchy lieutenant nanabots that are responsible for leading the squad leaders take on the responsibility of time and quantity values. Captains oversee the lieutenants and so on and I'm sure everyone gets the gist and can imagine further by now so I'll spare us all further and redundant description. Obviously this method wouldn't take as much onboard computing as self replicators would for each individual bot. In fact maybe only simple processing and radio or ultrasound communication with processing from an external computing source or hold on now maybe even one day from the onboard Artificially Augmented Intelligence (dare I coin it? AAI?) residing in ones skull. Easy enough? Eugene, please forgive me for having stepped on your cherished memes and forgive me please for here defending myself. Still friends? ;) _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Robert Ettinger wrote: > Patrick Swayze (#15875) has some good comments about savant capabilities and > human improvability. Thank you though I wish to gently correct a common typo that sometimes occurs when people refer to me. I don't really mind. It is even flattering. You see my distant cousin Patrick Swayze is the actor and I'm just a normal pion named James but I'm better looking. hehe ;) Patrick and I share a great great ....nth??, grandfather from the end of the 18th century. He was a wealthy land owner in New England and Judge named Samuel Swayze, Sr. Patrick is from the Samuel, Jr. line and I am from the line of Sam junior's brother Barnabas. I have no idea if we are 2nd, 3rd or what cousins or how far those numbers apply if at all. There is a family resemblence however. In the movie "Dirty Dancing" that made him so popular he is dancing at a party and beckons the girl to come dance with him by grinning widely and wagging his finger. That fat cheeks no teeth showing wide chipmunk grin is the same as mine. > This is similar to some of my comments in MAN INTO > SUPERMAN Yes, yes! This is what I aspire to become and hope for all of us. > However, this does not altogether avoid potential "singularity" or "spike" > problems. When Damien Broderick said "all bets are off or moot" in event of a > spike, I think he meant, at least in part, that there might be drastically > new conditions of life and new outlooks, regardless of whether conscious > computers are ruling the roost, and the results would be almost totally > unpredictable. My post was meant to focus on the dangerous aspect of Super AI as I knew it machine AI in the context of softening the singularity by taking an alternative more human friendly approach. I seized upon the Super AI reference of Damien's to focus on. Extremely rapid rise of knowledge is certainly likely but I feel Singularity is a poor term for it as everyone knows this refers to infinities and exponential functions never touch either zero in the low range nor infinity in the high range. > But, to repeat myself, there is no assurance that the results of > revolutionary ideas would spread like lightning. After all, there are > physical as well as societal constraints. Not to mention economics. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Scot Badger wrote: > To James Swayze; > > First let me say that I don't believe this thread to > be far off topic. I agree but I erred on the side of caution. > The singularity has a decent chance > of occurring before the technology develops to revive > cryonics patients and it would have an important > impact on our goals as well as everyone else in the > world for that matter. If certain singularity scenarios occur we likely don't have a snowball's chance in.... hehe. Couldn't resist. ;) > I'm certainly not the most qualified to respond to > your concerns about machine AI, but I think your > making some rather remarkable assumptions when you > suggest that a human-based AI will be much less > dangerous. I give it a better chance of being friendly than pure machine. But it's just a hunch. > will develop before the > general population has access to such a > transformation. I don't see it as an, forgive me, "event horizon" transformation. To keep from repeating myself please see my references above in comments to Eugene regarding dissemination of augmentation technology. > I would also expect that AI to quickly > evolve into an entity as superior to the average human > as the average human is to an insect. Sure if it occurred to only one, but there lies the difference in opinion. Again I refer to my above comments about dissemination of augmentation technology. > The notion that > that entity will retain its "humanity" simply because > its origin was human is difficult to argue in my > opinion. Still it has to be better odds than machine based. After all, why would a human based AI want to give up it's memories so readily? This may indeed occur over time or not but what reason would there be for it to immediately shed it's memory of humanness? > Imagine you're the entity for a moment and the next <required snipage for postability> > don't assume the AI would be > "lonely" or "sympathetic" or "ethical" by our > standards. Those are human traits and are not likely > to apply to a super AI. After all, how many traits do > share with ants? <More snipage> > So ... if you choose to avoid competition, what must > you do? Perhaps you can try to prevent the ants from <More snipage> > To what lengths would you go to spare them? My real > point is that you can't answer that question for a > super AI because you aren't one and cannot know it's > mind. It is unfathomable. All agreed if that were the case but as I said and will say differently here if we all surf the wave we can all rise with the tide. > The singularity and the idea of creating a super AI, > either machine-based or human-based, scares me, Me too, obviously. > but I > don't see how it's not going to happen. I do but still the odds are bad are they not? > Too many > people around the world are working on artificial > intelligence. The temptation will be too great to > resist. Someone's going to flip that switch and when > they do, for better or for worse, nothing is likely to > be the same again. All we can do is provoke debate. That's what we are doing here. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Brian Phillips wrote: > James Swayze , > > Well said. Thank you for the support. Whew! *wipes sweat from brow nervously looking over at Eugene* ;) > I agree that Singularity-meisters tend to seem oddly theistic. Sure do. > I have yet to hear a really good reason why the Artificial Intelligence > can't > ride inside a "technogland" in the nervous system. Certainly it can be > argued that one would want a chip the size of Luna, but still.... Not mobile enough for what I want to do. Of course someone might chime in and say, "How mobile is your 6 billion strong multiprocessor, James?". Well not very if we are talking about taking the entire computer on a long interstellar voyage. But maybe with the power we'll have we'll be able to find the right and safe way to make a machine AI helper to take along that will be as large as energy economies allow. > This is one reason why I am putting all my energies towards understanding > the Human side if the equation..the physiology and neurology and genetics, > rather than be yet another programmer type. Good. Being part of the solution as I see it. > People who work closely with computers tend to "personify" them, I wonder > if those who create them tend to "spiritualize" them to the point of > deification. Super AI sure is deified. Common terms are Jupiter Brain, demigod, godlike superior to human intelligence and on and on. Perhaps they need to take a serious look at their semantics. I have a theory based on the Sapir-Whorf theory of semantics which regards differing perceptions of symbology and difficulty finding a meeting of minds of peoples of differing languages. It's basically garbage in equals garbage out. If one uses certain semantics to the exclusion of others eventually it is difficult to find agreement over the same exact objects or concepts with others who have used differing semantics. To me this is why it is so difficult to get a creationist to see the same evidence for evolution the same way the scientist does. They've finessed their memes so through their own language of belief they can't possibly see what the scientist sees even when before their very eyes. Their paradigm is tinted. Perhaps this is so for the deification of machine AI. > We all have our blind spots. I sure do and I depend on my friends, you all included and you Eugene, to peel them off when I'm being obtuse. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Damien Broderick wrote: > product of the singularity is super AI so powerful as to take on > the role > >of a near god. > > James, I think you're confusing two different issues (at least; maybe > three). Will it happen? Will you like it happening, if so? Is there only > one sort of It to happen? Respectfully Damien I'll agree to mixing but confusing? Not sure I'll buy that but I'm listening. > My claim: I think a technological singularity is on the cards, because it's > a convergent outcome of a lot of different current inputs. No disagreement. I should have better qualified my not wanting to buy the scary type statement. I merely wish to influence the coming outcome such that we rise with the coming tide. > But it's not > obvious to me what *kind* of spike it'll be, or how swiftly it will occur, > and It's not something anyone could specifically nail down but we might be able to finesse it. At least I hope so. > I certainly don't consider it part of the hypothesis that a *cold > machine god* will be created. But many do in the very field working on it. How about instead of the semantics *cold machine god* we insert *cold machine entity beyond our comprehnsion that sees us as parasites*? > You just described a couple of possible Singularity outcomes. The first, > intelligence amplification of existing humans and their coordination into a > kind of emergent group mind, is... let's see... Spike version B ii (THE > SPIKE, 2001, p. 327). So in your writings Pan Human AI is possible even probable but even so we cannot even with the power that would give us exert any control over the dangerous uncertainties? I really need to get to reading your book I bought. ;) I am so bad about procrastination. I really hoped to see you at Asilomar and get it autographed. > We can't *help* acting stupidly, by comparisons with the fast, commodious > intelligences that will be here in 50 or 100 years. Again I say rise with the tide and look to how technology now disseminates under economic influences. By 50 or 100 years we may well all be augmented and hence BE the Super AI ourselves. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Rhetorical question to everyone: Which would you rather be, super human yourselves or serf to super machine? James Swayze -- Some of our views are spacious some are merely space--RUSH Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15902