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NPR Looks to Technological Singularity
Rick Kleffel writes to tell us that NPR is featuring a piece with both Vernor Vinge and Cory Doctorow looking at the possibility of the "technological singularity" in the near future. Wikipedia defines a technological singularity as a "hypothetical "event horizon" in the predictability of human technological development. Past this event horizon, following the creation of strong artificial intelligence or the amplification of human intelligence, existing models of the future cease to give reliable or accurate answers. Futurists predict that after the Singularity, posthumans and/or strong AI will replace humans as the dominating force in science and technology, rendering human-specific social models obsolete."
...welcome our new post-human overlords. (Somebody had to say it.)
So, they first say that you can't predict what'll happen after that singularity because The World Will Be So Different Than Now, and then proceed to give predictions of what'll happen after that singularity?
Brilliant, real brilliant.
First Post-Human!
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Are you serious?
How about these:
1791 Luigi Galvani accidentally closing an electrical circuit through a frog's leg, causing it to
jerk violently. This rapidly led to the understanding of how nerves and muscles work.
1879 Louis Pasteur accidentally inoculated chickens with an old cholera culture. The chickens should have died from cholera, but they got sick and then got better. After discovering the mistake, Pasteur re-inoculated the chickens with fresh culture and the chickens didn't even get sick. This lead to the modern vaccination.
1895 Wilhelm Roentgen accidentally discovered X-rays.
1928 Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered that a type of mold (later named Penicillium) significantly inhibited bacterial growth. This lead to antibiotics.
Never assume that all discoveries are predicted before they are "discovered." I would actually say that most INSIGNIFICANT technological advancement is predicted well out, most of these are evolutionary. Many significant advancements are revolutionary and there is no way many of them could be predicted as there was no information related to the new process before the discovery of the process itself.
Will AIs produce AIs, and if so, will they be better, or equally flawed?
The current thinking is that we will make seed AI, i.e., general intelligence for manipulating software, and that it will improve itself, in an incremental fashion, all the way up to and beyond the level of human intelligence. Of course, this will be done with the help and guidance of programmers but the fear is that by giving it free reign to manipulate itself we will no longer be able to understand what it creates. Not only will this mean that we won't learn anything, but we'll also be unable to control it. As such, most people who seriously consider working on this stuff advocate a goal based higher level of functioning with "friendliness" to humans as being the primary goal and improve yourself as a secondary subgoal. That way, even if the beast gets out of control, the worst it will do is solve world hunger.
How we know is more important than what we know.