Comments on: Singularity, part 1

By:

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:39:57 +0000

What is consciousness?
Where is it located?
Perhaps it is more widespread than is currently understood or accepted.
Who is to say that the pervasive internet, connected to our minds, is not already conscious?

By:

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:56:24 +0000

Just as the History Channel keeps turnning out shows about (possible) UFO sightings we are going to keep hearing about the Mad Scientist who has achieved the impossible. The robot that can think for itself. Has a government come up with anything even close? Probably. Will we ever see or hear about it? I doubt it. Unless they have developed the so called “Army of Bot’s” where they will have complete control of the entire world econimies or one of them get’s their pix inthe paper because it killed someone.

C. Webster Rose

By:

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:53:00 +0000

I think you are somewhat misinterpreting Hanson’s paper. His point is that, contrary to Miller, nanotech *doesn’t* change everything. Nano would only decrease production costs, but that will be an increasingly small fraction of the cost of future goods. The only thing that changes everything is increased intelligence, either human or machine. Hanson favors a scenario in which human brains are scanned and “uploaded” into computers, where they can be sped up and improved. Others expect to see super-intelligent AIs developed. While either of these technologies might well depend on nanotech, or at least be greatly facilitated by it, nano is not the key element in making them come true. It’s entirely possible that we could have nanotech for decades without achieving super intelligence, and during that time human brainpower will continue to be the bottleneck preventing a true Breakthrough.

By: Instapundit » Blog Archive » SOME THOUGHTS ON THE SINGULARITY, from J. Storrs Hall….

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:18:45 +0000

[...] SOME THOUGHTS ON THE SINGULARITY, from J. Storrs Hall. [...]

By:

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:23:17 +0000

By the way why are we all using the anonymous name? LOL, just wondering.

Do you all think off budget black programs have already succeeded in building working assembler devices or something similiar? The problem with such speculation is that until we are told or it is proven, it is a dead end conversation, ie, we will never know unless we see evidence, so forget about it, I guess.

Aside from AI control, and nano immune systems, what are other methods that would allow us to have citizen owned nanotech without major disasters and terrorism?

By:

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 06:22:06 +0000

There will always be someone to make hardware and software do more then it was intended to do. That’s what modern day hackers are. If nanotechnology is released in any form it will be just a matter of time before any security measures are exploited.

This idea that the people creating nanotechnology are motivated simply for the betterment of mankind is naive. The truth is a good chunk of the funding is coming from military organizations in almost every major country.

By:

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:18:22 +0000

In his book ‘The Singularity is Near’, Kurzweil explains that like the Internet today with anti virus software, in an advanced molecular manufacturing era would need to have an immune system in place to prevent a disaster. Also, today we already have very sensitive structures that are prone to be hacked and cause a lot of trouble. Additionally, when personal tabletop factories can manufacture anything from food to furniture, including cars and houses, our current money based economy would be replaced by something else. How would any tyrannical government or other wise pay law enforcement? I’d like to quote Julius Caesar in the 1963 film ‘Cleopatra’; “Legionaries make the law legal”.

By:

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:30:47 +0000

The average person is NOT going to have unfettered control over a self-replicating nanorobot. You can call it tyranny if you like, but it’s just not going to happen. The planet wouldn’t last 3 minutes before someone killed everyone else. Liberty is not worth death of the human race, not by a long shot. Ideally, a ‘fair’ AI would be in control, that would obey human commands as long as they followed ‘rules’ that set forth basic rational actions that can happen, like you could ask the AI to cook you a steak and it would, but if you asked it to kill your neighbor it would refuse. If you want to call that slavery and repression, fine, but I see no other choice. I’m sure it will be possible to effectively ‘prove’ the AI will follow the rules it’s supposed to. There will probably be much whining and gnashing of teeth over the ‘possibility of the AI going bezerk’ but the alternative (letting anyone do what they want) would be absurd, and short.

By:

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:16:28 +0000

Well I tend to hold to the notion, based on abundant evidence, that human beings ARE inherently selfish and tend to evil, but, I also strongly support and believe we must use advanced technologies and make the nanotech age happen, and, think about it this way:

One reason why we have not ended poverty with our advanced bulk technology is that it is still INHERENTLY EXPENSIVE for the average person to have control over manufacturing technologies, and those technologies are in and of themselves very limited.

Once we have Self Expanding Self Replicating Molecular Meso Macro Replicator type systems, it becomes INHERENTLY CHEAP AND EASY to make things!!!

This has two core main areas of use:

1 Even WITH THE INHERENTLY SELFISH NATURE of man, it makes it EASY and CHEAP without much personal cost for more people to do good deeds through the tech, like make copies of it and give it away to poor people, and, make food clothes medicines etc etc etc with nanotech. This will almost guarantee it gets out to the people who need it the most.

2 This also makes it easier and cheaper for nefarious minded people such as terrorists to take this technology and make massive weapons and not so massive weapons to kill and harm other people.

One of my fears is this: How will the governments of the world, both repressive and less repressive, react, and deal with this? Will they say “Alright, we need more Constitutional libertarian rules, because there is no way we can stop people from using this nano factory stuff”, or, will they say “Now we have to be more repressive and more tyrannical and hard handed, and use the new technology to permeate society with surveilliance machines” ?