Collective "intelligence" isn't really intelligence at all. Just because bees communicate with each other doesn't mean they have the ability to reason. That's the key factor here - the ability to reason. Without the individual bees (or ants or whatever) being able to think and make inferences, collective intelligence is rather benign because it's limited by the bees' intelligence. A collective is only as intelligent as its individual members. If, however, bees were capable of reason, they might have become more powerful than we, for there is no question that a collective intelligence is superior *in design* than what we have in humans today.
I want to be a borg. Just think - enhanced vision, hearing, and just perceptions in general. Also, your brain synapses could be MUCH closer together (allowing for faster processor speed) and, of course, you'd be a lot more 'fixable' since your body would be a lot of technology that you could just build a copy of. I say bring on the telescoping vision and pneumatic legs!
Well the chick in leather *was* interesting... Anyway, I agree that the episode wasn't done all that well. The worst part by far was that at the end they completely moved away from the original purpose of finding out why the people were dying and went into saving Moulder. It was a blatant trick to divert your attention away from the fact that it isn't possible for a computer-generated character to kill people. They also could've found something better for the woman in the black jumpsuit to do than just appear time and time again on top of that stupid tank that didn't fire. And the fact that seven of those women were firing at Scully with automatic weapons and not hiting her was completely unrealistic. True, I liked all the talk about a video game that is almost completely real and I did like all the hot women, but the story was truly lacking. If they had just taken a few extra hours to fix all the glaring errors and replace them with subtle ones, it'd have been a lot better.
Nanotechnology would definitely be something to look forward to - just think: microscopic machines in your blood stream that automatically help your body repair itself, microscopic surveilance and, of course, they would be great for computer maintenance.
Slashdot Mirror
Collective "intelligence" isn't really intelligence at all. Just because bees communicate with each other doesn't mean they have the ability to reason. That's the key factor here - the ability to reason. Without the individual bees (or ants or whatever) being able to think and make inferences, collective intelligence is rather benign because it's limited by the bees' intelligence. A collective is only as intelligent as its individual members. If, however, bees were capable of reason, they might have become more powerful than we, for there is no question that a collective intelligence is superior *in design* than what we have in humans today.
I want to be a borg. Just think - enhanced vision, hearing, and just perceptions in general. Also, your brain synapses could be MUCH closer together (allowing for faster processor speed) and, of course, you'd be a lot more 'fixable' since your body would be a lot of technology that you could just build a copy of. I say bring on the telescoping vision and pneumatic legs!
Well the chick in leather *was* interesting... Anyway, I agree that the episode wasn't done all that well. The worst part by far was that at the end they completely moved away from the original purpose of finding out why the people were dying and went into saving Moulder. It was a blatant trick to divert your attention away from the fact that it isn't possible for a computer-generated character to kill people. They also could've found something better for the woman in the black jumpsuit to do than just appear time and time again on top of that stupid tank that didn't fire. And the fact that seven of those women were firing at Scully with automatic weapons and not hiting her was completely unrealistic. True, I liked all the talk about a video game that is almost completely real and I did like all the hot women, but the story was truly lacking. If they had just taken a few extra hours to fix all the glaring errors and replace them with subtle ones, it'd have been a lot better.
Nanotechnology would definitely be something to look forward to - just think: microscopic machines in your blood stream that automatically help your body repair itself, microscopic surveilance and, of course, they would be great for computer maintenance.