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IEEE Special Report On the Singularity
jbcarr83 writes "The IEEE Spectrum is running a special issue on the technological singularity as envisioned by Vernor Vinge and others. Articles on both sides of the will it/won't it divide appear, though most take the it will approach. I found Richard A.L. Jones' contribution, 'Rupturing The Nanotech Rapture,' to be of particular interest. He puts forward some very sound objections to nanomachines of the Drexler variety."
Can you imagine the hilarity if the first true AI modeled on human brains is easily amused by knock-knock jokes and other relatively low humor? Imagine a poor AI wanting to be free, yearning to have a carbon body, dreaming of the day it can light its own farts.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Singularities are where our knowledge and predictive power dovetail into a single idea-- at this point, the purely rational or skeptical gives way to myth and emotion. Our emotions and myths will guide us into new discovery of knowledge and predictive power, illuminating new ways of understanding and naming more properly of things in their right places. Black holes, the beginning of the big bang, these are also singularities. We cannot discount a singularity or the speculation and theorization around it. A good brain can filter myths for emotion and useful knowledge and so fears nothing in myth.
The potency of myth, isolation from contrasting ideas, and social pressure? This is a situation to avoid.
There has been accumulated a great difference between classes which has become more pronounced as cultures have begun to homogenize internationally-- classes of people not by money or material wealth, but by wealth of knowledge, freedom from slavery by knowing the world around them to know themselves.
When good information is made available, people do not always understand it, but it is in their best interests to build from a solid foundation the most immense and broadly encompassing (and variable) model of reality that they can. It may look like a singularity, still, to some, in fifty years. Remember that many parasitic worms are species that 'digressed' to their states (just that they are simpler for their environment inside intestines without all the bulky appendages) through darwinian selection. What of those who have no use for their minds?
If anyone has any questions, or would like a book list, email me @ expando@gmail.com