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My sig is simply in reponse to Fermi's quote - "where are they?" - about ETs being MIA in the face of the numbers. It's just my opinion that every intelligent civilization evolves exponentially to the point of self-destruction, or singularity (at which point pre-singularity civilizations are as interesting as slime mold, and ignored, but still respected in a prime-directive kind of way).

The singularitarians will disagree with you. It is dangerous not to develop technology that will protect you from other technologies. Namely, only sophisticated technology will protect you: otherwise you're a sitting duck.

This is the goal of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence.

They have a few relevant pieces of material, such as FRIENDLY AI and 3 Laws Unsafe.

The singularitarians will disagree with you. It is dangerous not to develop technology that will protect you from other technologies. Namely, only sophisticated technology will protect you: otherwise you're a sitting duck.

This is the goal of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence.

They have a few relevant pieces of material, such as FRIENDLY AI and 3 Laws Unsafe.

Many of these questions are discussed (and partial solutions proposed) in the Creating Friendly AI essay. I don't have time to comment on the specifics at the moment, but it's an interesting read.

http://singinst.org/index.html

The sooner molecular manufacturing is advanced, the sooner global poverty, and most economic inequality can actually be eliminated. You can donate a fish today, or donate towards the tech that can assemble a fish using free solar and recycled molecules in the middle of the desert...

(Anyway, I just had to add you to my friends-list for being in the position you're in without also having the exessively-greedy me-me-me mentality.)

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Ideas, anyone?

plenty. And I agree with you, but while Asimov wrote some great stories, the "three laws" are a useful plot device at best. Development of real, human friendly AI will have to take into account resource contention etc. just as you point out. The most important thing is that, also as you pointed out, the temptation is too great for prohibitions to work. We have to develop friendly AI before we accidentally create unfriendly AI. (And for AI I hear include any sort of A-Life which has the potential for self-direction)

• http://www.singinst.org/

• http://yudkowsky.net/singularity.html

I actually ran into all of the talk about the singularity by asking the question: What is the meaning of life? More specifically, I asked Jeeves.

The first result he comes up with (this one) is an FAQ on the meaning of life. Part of the question of the meaning of life is an eventual goal, something to reach towards. Once of the options discussed is the Singularity.

The best place for more info is the Singularity Institute. Their definition of the Singularity is the technogical creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. This is by any possible means, either overclocking the human mind, creating artificial intelligence which is smarter than humans, or some combination thereof (such as uploading human minds to computers to run at a faster rate).

Read the FAQ. It'll clear up your basic questions, and doubtless leave you with many more.

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Molecular manufacturing is "just around the corner"

If you're young, then maybe for your grandchildren.

In our lifetimes, actually - as long as you're healthy and younger than ~60. You see, the rate of overall technological progress (not just "Moore's Law") has been increasing exponentially for a long time, and we're just now on the knee of the accelerating curve to Singularity, so the future will get here much faster than you think. And nanotech itself isn't the (deadly) destination anyway, but a stepping stone.

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For me, the anti-machine Jihad was always the most depressing aspect of Dune. bunch of luddites.

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Hey, we're wired for tribalism in our evolutionary psych, so "globalism" is a really tough sell compared to Us vs. Them nationalism. Even after nanotechnology has eliminated the source (scarce resources) of most conflicts, there will still be that innate desire to belong to one righteous (and arbitrary) cultural tribe or another.

I predict that nanotech will ... [BE A GODSEND]

Only for a relatively limited window of time, though. Shortly after we've mastered molecular manipulation, parallel advacing tech will mean that many of us will be transcending a limited physical existence for "virtual life".

I also predict nanotech will ... [BE THE DEVILS WORK]

There is certainly a dangerous mismatch between our still-primitive human brains and our exponentially advancing tech. Our only hope is 1) being extremely lucky, and/or 2) getting some eggs out of the Earth-basket so we don't lose the whole civilization in one go, and/or 3) give friendly AI control of critical systems such as the artificial nano-immune system (aka: "active shield") infesting every nook and cranny in the future...

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Reasoning that the universe should be FILLED with intelligent life by now, Fermi simply asked, "So where are they?"

I assume that the vast majority of intelligent civilizations don't make it past The Great Filter. It's the rare race that survives the dangerous mismatch between their primitive brains and their exponentially advancing technology.

If there are any who have made it past Singularity, then their existence must surely be so far advanced as to be unrecognizable; like we are to ants (no *squish* jokes).

This IMO. My sig isn't a proof or anything.

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2) Kurzweil isn't alone in predicting the nearness of Singularity. Vernor Vinge, Hans Moravec, Marvin Minksy, Michio Kaku, Yudkowsky, and a host of other "credible" thinkers all see the same exponential acceleration, and put the Singularity anywhere between NOW() and ~2080 at the far end.

3) I'm sorry you had to read that "POS" article. I can only imagine the cognitive dissonance you must be going through... (I joke).

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Choose Option #2 - Nanotech. The faster we get there the less we'll have to suffer in the meantime.

In all seriousness, if I was to go back to college again, I would not waste my money or time learning any field other than nanotech or cognitive science.

Why? Simple: When nanotech matures, it means that "Putting FOOD On The Table(TM)" is no longer an issue because we'll finally have the god-like power to cheaply and easily reconfigure the molecules in a pound of random garbage into anything else we need or want (composed of the same component molecules as said garbage).

Nanotech's about the only thing on the horizon that has the chance to reverse the obscene concentration of wealth we're seeing today.

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Hey, you really shouldn't call it communism (ack!) - people will never accept that tainted label again. And besides, even when technology finally makes "communism" economically viable (because in an economy of abundance everybody is equally rich instead of equally poor), and workable politically (i.e. democratic vs totalitarian), we'll still want a fair bit of capitalism mixed in to provide people an incentive to earn whatever limited scarcity is left, such as prime realestate. A do nothing bum with no reputation, or an asshole lawyer with a negative one, doesn't deserve (and wouldn't be granted by society) that prime realestate, but a great artist, scientist, personality, religious figure, inventor, or whatever, would.

That would make open source everything possible, although we'll not be able to enjoy it for long with technological singularity and stuff...

Yeah, pity all the pre-singularity fun/pain will be so short-lived, but assuming we make it to Singularity that shouldn't be a problem: our post-human selves could easily simulate many time-compressed combinations of old Earth life (in any mental context).

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Foresight Institute

Institute for Molecular Manufacturing

Singularity Institute for AI

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Nanotech.

That, or the Singularity

Well, the thing is a chess computer can ONLY play chess - a human with the same degree of intelligence can do many other things. Kasparov could have become a doctor, a lawyer, a programmer, or a Go player. Or he could have developed a different aspect of his intelligence and been a poet.

I think computers need true intelligence before they're equal to humans, no matter how well they play one classic board game.

It is far, far more likely that our exponentionally advancing technology will destroy us before we've had a chance to leave the nest, and transcend to a safer form (non-bio) minus some of our outmoded evolutionary jungle-brain baggage.

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Once a person has been introduced to the inevitability of the evolution of smarter-than-human intelligence, they can no longer claim ignorance, and either accept it or go into denial like most people because the future shock is too much for old belief systems to handle, or too fantastic for bitter cynics who didn't get their promised flying cars.

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Prolegomena to Any Future Artificial Moral Agent

Creating Friendly AI

Incidentally, these are both obvious prior art.

For me it would, because the part of the story I was most interested in *was* the "valueless" escapism of the Matrix's simulated reality, rather than what 'evil' AI entity controlled it. I'm in the minority though... being a Singularitarian who views a Matrix-like future of mind-uploads as a GOOD step on the shortening road to Singularity.

Very few know that Bush ordered all investigations of Saudis abandoned several months before it.

(And even fewer people questioned why Bush tried so hard to block the independent 9-11 investigation after-the-fact. Now, I'm no "Bush Knew!" conspiracy theorist, but it was just insane that they would fight an investigation into the deadliest terrorist attack thusfar, unless there were messy details they couldn't risk being uncovered that would jeopardize the 9-11 powergrab gravytrain to follow.)

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This is a much better site, as far as Singularity-type stuff goes. It's the personal page of Eliezer Yudkowsky, one of the founders of the Singularity Institute (a much blander site than his personal one).

you probably can't beat this site.

The idea goes as follows: If a self-aware "real AI" ever existed, one capable of self-understanding and self-modification (called the seed AI), it would be in a much better position to create AI than its original creators. So would begin a chain of self-refinement and the creation of progressively smarter intelligences with decreasing time gaps between stages. Eventually a point is reached, called the singularity: nothing about the future past the singularity can be predicted by humans who live in the pre-singularity world. A common interpretation is that the chain of AIs would become more intelligent without bound, leading to a verticality.

The singulaity was first popularized by Vernor Vinge.

I've been doing a lot of reading on the singularity lately, and I've become more and more convinced that it is certain to happen.

More singularity links:
The singularity institute - A nonprofit working to hasten the singularity
Extensive writings by Eliezer Yudkowsky.
I've myself written a bit on singularity and AI related topics.

The idea goes as follows: If a self-aware "real AI" ever existed, one capable of self-understanding and self-modification (called the seed AI), it would be in a much better position to create AI than its original creators. So would begin a chain of self-refinement and the creation of progressively smarter intelligences with decreasing time gaps between stages. Eventually a point is reached, called the singularity: nothing about the future past the singularity can be predicted by humans who live in the pre-singularity world. A common interpretation is that the chain of AIs would become more intelligent without bound, leading to a verticality.

The singulaity was first popularized by Vernor Vinge.

I've been doing a lot of reading on the singularity lately, and I've become more and more convinced that it is certain to happen.

More singularity links:
The singularity institute - A nonprofit working to hasten the singularity
Extensive writings by Eliezer Yudkowsky.
I've myself written a bit on singularity and AI related topics.

By the time people require truly ubiquitous connectivity, we would have reached singularity. Telepathy will work as a permanet then.

Most of the current approaches in AI research try to find a 'magic bullet' to the problem of intelligence, and hence fail completely (e.g. many of them just implement something like the big brother of Eliza: Eliza was (meant to be) a joke when it came out and it still is.)

One promising approach realizes that intelligence is a complex area that needs to be analyzed at multiple levels. It is called Deliberative General Intelligence: read the complete document here: http://www.singinst.org/LOGI.html and decide for yourself if the concrete, clear, and comprehensive theory that it presents seems light years ahead of anything else.

Warning: it is a few dozen pages - be prepared to read it over multiple sittings. IMHO it is well worth it.

A maze of twisty little nanotubes, all alike.

The following are from The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

"The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence."

"Vernor Vinge originally coined the term "Singularity" in observing that, just as our model of physics breaks down when it tries to model the singularity at the center of a black hole, our model of the world breaks down when it tries to model a future that contains entities smarter than human."

Pretty interesting stuff. That site as well as others have a lot of information about the Singularity and its accompanying theories.

Karl Marx has already explained exactly where money is going to go... into the ash-heap of history.

You're quite right, although the singularity will be what causes it.

Nanotechnology will play a big part in this. What it boils down to is, once we can replicate materials (like in Star Trek) we won't need to exchange pieces of paper in order to obtain goods. Services, perhaps, but the machines will be able to perform most services and you can replicate the machines.

This should all happen within our lifetimes. Perhaps in less than a generation (~20 years).

Karl Marx has already explained exactly where money is going to go... into the ash-heap of history.

You're quite right, although the singularity will be what causes it.

Nanotechnology will play a big part in this. What it boils down to is, once we can replicate materials (like in Star Trek) we won't need to exchange pieces of paper in order to obtain goods. Services, perhaps, but the machines will be able to perform most services and you can replicate the machines.

This should all happen within our lifetimes. Perhaps in less than a generation (~20 years).

Karl Marx has already explained exactly where money is going to go... into the ash-heap of history.

You're quite right, although the singularity will be what causes it.

Nanotechnology will play a big part in this. What it boils down to is, once we can replicate materials (like in Star Trek) we won't need to exchange pieces of paper in order to obtain goods. Services, perhaps, but the machines will be able to perform most services and you can replicate the machines.

This should all happen within our lifetimes. Perhaps in less than a generation (~20 years).

Oh come on. It HAS to be your insane job requirements that are keeping the unemployed brains away. Maybe it's the "20 years Java experience required" combined with the hassle of getting security clearance. :-)

(AI interests me greatly, but, ick... government work makes you feel dirty.)

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The web page you refer to erroneously defines the singularity as the moment when we become "capable of technologically creating smarter-than-human intelligence." This is a misinformed definition, because it does not describe a (mathematical) singularity, which is a vertical asymptote in some function.

I should have linked more specifically. The idea of the Singularity Institute is exactly that, though it doesn't say clearly enough on the front page. I quote:

The Singularity is beyond huge, but it can begin with something small. If one smarter-than-human intelligence exists, that mind will find it easier to create still smarter minds. [...] That one technological advance is the equivalent of the first self-replicating chemical that gave rise to life on Earth.

You're probably right that physics sets an upper limit. On the other hand, the idea of a self-improving intelligence is immensely cool, even if it has that upper barrier. Singinst.org get -3 for feasibility, but +10 for cool ;-)

Even if it turned out that we were able to produce what we'd now count as a "human machine," I think that we would then deny that it was human.

What do we say when the "machine" has a child with a "real" human? When the genes of the "machine" has been diluted after 10 generations of interbreeding with "real" humans?

I'm not saying it's likely to happen, or even desirable, the question just had to be asked.

While we're at AI surpassing humans, you should also have a look at the idea of the singularity.

The advancements from there would snowball, as the hardware and software used to make things would then become meta-creators themselves (and therefore be the meta-meta-creations of the humans who designed this AI). This would go on and on...

While the site calls it a "singularity" I tend to think of it more as an "event horizon" (in more than one sense).

It's frustrating that /. posts this sort of thing, but never touches on serious stuff dealing with the Singularity. Bah to the moderators.

For example, the Singularity Institute has a vast array of comp-sci-related interesting stuff about General Artifical Intelligence and its role in the Singularity. The institute and volunteers are working on Flare, a programming language for GAI development.

Then we have the Foresight Institute who have a bunch of scholarly, serious things to say about nanotechnology and its implications.

Just for starters, of course. Then we have a million other resources out there, such as:

KurzweilAI.net
Extropy Institute

at which one can learn about the Singularity and associated topics in context.

But no, we get trash like the spaceship guy. Bah, bah, bah. Reason

Just a second... to save the race from the Singularity? The Singularity is a good thing. If you read Vinge's essay, or any of the other essays on the subject, you'll find that people look forward to this event and are actively trying to move the date forward. One fellow says that the definition of morally good is that which makes the Singularity happen sooner.

(There's a lot of interesting things at the Singularity Institute by the way.)

So either the poster is on crack, or ve represents a new and radically different perspective on the Singularity than I have ever seen in print. Which is it?

We will have such chips implanted into our brains in order to reason even quicker, then we will develop newer chip that will help design newer computers that will miniaturize themselves as new implants that will help us...

Actually, you just described the singularity, at least in some form. You should read up on it, judging by your comment, you'd probably be interested.

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I suspect the life expectancy for people 60 today is significantly better than life expectancy for 60 year olds 20 years ago, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing an explosion of 65+ year olds (and 80+ and 100+). For there to really be "no cap" on life expectancy though, the maximum human lifespan needs to increase. AFAIK there are no documented cases of humans living much beyond 120. However, at only 3 months/year increase in life expectancy, we won't hit that barrier in this century. By that time (well before it) we'll have figured out how to significantly increase biological human lifespan. If you don't want to count on any such progress, calorie restriction seems to be the only current method we have of possibly extending maximum lifespan. At the other extreme, you could just wait for the singularity to obviate the need for biology.

A much smaller and more general explanation for a seed AI is here at the Singularity Institute.

A much smaller and more general explanation for a seed AI is here at the Singularity Institute.

This is something to be very afraid of if people who are not fans of Western culture manage to develop it first.

Interestingly, it looks like you could purchase access to this much computing power by buying out BDE for a mere $6 million.

This is something to be very afraid of if people who are not fans of Western culture manage to develop it first.

Interestingly, it looks like you could purchase access to this much computing power by buying out BDE for a mere $6 million.

screw you! I plan to upload and leave this rock for somewhere prettier in a few decades!

while there are many different current projects that would fall under the moniker of self-modifying code (that are not viruses) i think what you are getting at, and what is more relevant to our discussion, can be found here.

as far as self-modifying code performing the same task but differently, you are basically correct - the most useful application is programs that are written to be self-modifying in order to make themselves more efficient. they do the same basic thing, but can "learn" to do it much faster. as a counterpoint to your original argument, i read a recent article describing a man who wrote what he thought was the most efficient code possible to do a certain task, then ran the (self-modifying) code. after many iterations it was more efficient than what he thought was the most efficient solution - a program being "smarter" than its creator.

but for true innovation, for AI that can make revolutionary leaps instead of evolutionary ones, we are indeed not there yet. however, researchers are showing progress, and to rule it out is jumping too quickly to conclusions.