X-Message-Number: 18484
From: 
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 09:26:56 EST
Subject: more on rats etc

Yvan Bozzonetti wrote in part:

[R.E.]> A human with a 
>self-improving computer at his command (or a zillion of them), linked just 
>enough to maintain control, would be more than a match for any swarm of 
>rats, given his head start.       

[YB]>I think exponential expansion will swap any start advantage in half a 
>century. Think for example about 100 animals/computers and use Moore's law 
so 
>that more computing power is used for more "people" You have:
>100 000 individuals after 15 years,
>100 000 000 after 30 years,
>100 000 000 000 after 45 years, game over.

I don't think Mr. Bozzonetti has addressed my point. The exponential growth 
(if it persists) will apply much more to the computers than to the organisms. 
If one human starts out with one self-replicating, self-improving computer to 
which he is linked, then (maybe) after a while he is the "head" or the 
conscious part of a zillion super-computers. If, at a later time, a hundred 
rats start out linked to a hundred relatively simple computers, I don't see 
how they could ever catch up. (Remember, the hundred base-line computers will 
be largely duplicating each other's efforts, not multiplying them.)

If two vehicles start at different times with the same acceleration, the one 
starting earlier constantly increases its lead. In the computer case the 
effect will probably be more pronounced, because the RATE of acceleration 
will also be increasing.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org

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