X-Message-Number: 19758
From: "Brett Bellmore" <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #19751 Machine desires and aims
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 09:44:05 -0400

"Along this line, I suggest that anyone who has not yet done so plug
"singularity" into your search engine, and take a look at the web sites
actively *promoting* this event and whether they know it or not, the
consequent obliteration of the human species.  It is sad."

I care whether people get obliterated. I don't much care whether the SPECIES
gets obliterated. In fact, the species is doomed in any event; Our only hope
for indefinate survival is to continually improve, after all. Which means we
eventually won't be "human" anymore, and the species will be gone. If it
happens in the course of a decade instead of a hundred thousand years, what
of it?

"Unfortunately, I don't see any eventual solution to this problem.  I can
only suggest that all keep eyes open, and have "hunker down" plans in place
for when it hits.  (As for what "it" is, my best guess would be attempted
deprival of food, water, air, and other necessities for human existence.)"

Hunkering down strikes me as no solution at all. A ruthlessly practical AI,
with no concern for biological life, would reason that the only way to
access for use the ENTIRE mass of the planet is to disassemble it; Blow it
up into another asteriod belt, after removing the volitiles on the surface.
You're better at hunkering down than I, if you could survive that. Running
like hell the moment advancing technology makes it possible, would be a far
more practical strategy,

"Unless, of course, you are just itching to be "assimilated" - sorry, the
Borg are not going to visit you; they are fictional creatures - but
wouldn't you like to just go and join some nice Eastern religion whose
ultimate aim is to "become one" with nothingness, and leave the rest of us
alone to enjoy our real lives?  Thank you."

Ideally, I'd like AI to come to mean "Amplified Intelligence"; Why create
our successors, when we can become our successors? That's the real solution
to making sure they share our values. I suppose you could consider that a
form of "assimilation", in that what we're going to become will be so much
greater than what we are now. But not really; Is an acorn assimilated into
an oak tree? Certainly, we needn't lose our individuality in the process.

Brett Bellmore

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19758