Drexler Debunked? And Auschwitz, too.
from the bad-signal-to-noise-ratio dept.
MarkGubrud writes of his encouter with Lyle Burkhead's "geniebusters" site: "From a post to the Mind-X bulletin board at Ray Kurzweil's splashy new website, we learn of the existence of an actual "critique" of the idea of nanotechnology, specifically as described by Drexler and followers of his ideas. Since the absence in the literature of any scholarly papers examining Nanosystems or other published scholarly work on the theory of assembler-based nanotech stands in glaring contrast to the offhand dismissal of this body of work by some famous scientists and science journalists, I was eager to have a look at this putative coup de grace, at www.geniebusters.org.
"I find that this website makes a number of interesting points, but fails to support its overall position, which is an aggressive denunciation of Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation and the idea of assembler-based nanotechnology."
Editor's Note: Burkhead's site has been up on the web for some time (well over a year), but his "critique" hasn't generated much interest. Read more from Mark Gubrud's comments to see why . . .
Mark Gubrud writes:
"Mr. Burkhead demonstrates his familiarity with the ideas and claims of strong nanotechnology, asserting forcibly that the main thesis is "an illusion."
However, although he identifies a number of technical issues, which suggest limitations and costs to be expected, he offers nothing more than his vociferously stated judgement that these issues are going to prove fatal to the Drexlerian project.
Burkhead never calculates a number, or addresses any weakness in the calculations presented by Drexler in Nanosystems and by other assembler theorists in journals such as Nanotechnology, but only invokes "common sense" in asking whether strong nanotechnology sounds plausible, given that it would not be like the world we have known until now.
If one follows the website far enough down its meandering byways of numbered and unnumbered pages, one discovers that Mr. Burkhead is apparently a Holocaust denier (well a gas-chamber denier, anyway, as he would evidently correct me with a considerable grievance) and a self-described admirer of Nazi Germany as a model for "transhumanism", as well as a white-power racist."
You can also find quite of bit of commentary on Burkhead's site by viewing it via crit.org
March 23rd, 2001 at 8:05 AM
the old ad hominem
I read some of that Lyle Burkhead piece and I think his arguments are easily demolished, particularly since he cedes the possibility for nano-sized machines. But you don't demolish an argument by attacking the mans views on the Holocaust. Sure, we might not like him because he's into White Power (I didn't read that part so I have no idea if that is true or not). But whether or not he is into white power has 0 bearing on any arguments he is making regarding nanotech. Makes Mark Gubrud look as if he needs to bend logic to debunk this guy. Which I don't think is the case. There are plenty of people who are capable of making a sound argument, yet have evil beliefs.
March 23rd, 2001 at 2:08 PM
Re:the old ad hominem
I mentioned Mr. Burkhead's stranger obsessions mainly because Mr. Burkhead himself put them on the same website amongst the pages of his attack on nanotech. Is it "ad hominem" to merely communicate this information, which might go unnoticed by someone who spends less time reading through the site, and let the reader decide whether any implications can be drawn about the character of the man and his thinking?
You're right that Burkhead's arguments on nanotech deserve to be evaluated on their own merits, and that they are very easily dismissed when they are clear, so there is no need to drag in the man's politics. But it says something that he dragged in right in himself.
March 24th, 2001 at 11:21 PM
Re:the old ad hominem
But whether or not he is into white power has 0 bearing on any arguments he is making regarding nanotech.
Actually it has some bearing, since it is generally a good bet that somebody who has such views is likely a person whose ability to reason and to perceive the world clearly are very poor. This does not mean that his arguments about nanotechnology are wrong per se, but it does suggest that they go farther back in one's endless queue of things to pay attention to than the criticisms of somebody who seems otherwise cluefull.
March 25th, 2001 at 2:06 AM
Re:the old ad hominem
Ajax said:
To be fair to Burkhead, he does say:
So Burkhead makes the distinction between believing in nanotech, vs the likely outcomes. I still disagree with him, but the distinction is important. He's not talking about possibilities, I think, but likely outcomes. Something good people can disagree about (and I do!).
I'm in two minds on this. I despise ad hominem attacks as much as the next person — but, as chip says in his/her reply to this thread, given all the info rushing past my PC I need a way to filter the noise, to prioritise, to moderate content if you will. Chances are, if Burkhead is capable of indulging in the typical flawed arguments of gas-chamber denial (e.g, a fondness of straw men), then he may do the same with what he says about nanotech — and reading just the intro of his nanotech page so far, I believe he does just this.
However, I wonder if merely mentioning Burkhead's politics in passing smacked of ad hominem. Some mention should have been made – but tied to examples of flawed logic or reasoning. Otherwise it does indeed sound like an attack on character rather than argument.
March 25th, 2001 at 4:05 AM
Ad Hominem & Burkhead Replies!
MarkGubrud said:
Well, they may have been on the same server, but you make it sound like it was mixed up within the nanotech pages.
I haven't read every page, but I didn't see it there.
Of course, thanks to you there is now a mention of his gas-chamber views on the nanotech pages!
For those that haven't seen it, Mr Burkhead has posted an update to the index page in which he mentions Mr Gubrud's nanodot postings. In part he says:
It is unfortunate that Mr Burkhead chooses this page to pin his character to. This is not the time or place to debunk that page (though I can't resist pointing out that two of his six reasons are making the old "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" claim), but adding it to his nanotech page can only muddy the waters.
Mr Burkhead goes on to state:
SNIP
Having not read all the pages of Mr Burkhead's site yet (I'm busy, but hope to get through them soon), I find this statement both unlikely, yet valuable. It's unlikely because at this stage in my Burkhead explorations I cannot imagine how any reading of the Nazis makes them look even remotely transhuman, as I understand the term.
Yet it's a valuable statement because as nanotech (and even biotech) really start to change people's lives, those in favour of the wise use of these technologies will need to be on guard against the sadly inevitable Nazi comparisons that will be made – whether these comparisons are used to condemn bio-/nano-tech or used in an admiring (?) but misguided way.
Returning to Mark Gubrud's comments:
Yes, actually it is. Simply dropping that information into your post (and into it's toungue-in-cheek heading), without showing how that information is relevant to the topic under discussion, just letting it sit there and insinuate all sorts of negative views about Mr Burkhead, is almost the definition of an ad hominim attack. Perhaps you were in a hurry?
Mr Gubrud then says:
Hear hear!
(I'm assuming this was meant to read "But it says something that he dragged it right in himself.")
Did he? He cited his gas-chamber-denial views in amongst his nanotech comments in support of his nanotech views? Can you pass me a URL where he does this?
March 26th, 2001 at 4:21 PM
Critical thinking about AI isn't such a bad idea
Anybody interested in seeing nanotech developed and put to good use might be irritated by the geniebusters site. But a few ideas there deserve some thought, particularly this overall summary statement: Without AI systems ("Genies") that design everything for free, molecular manufacturing is just agribusiness.
It's true that nanotechnology as it is generally envisioned is highly dependent upon machine intelligence. Human institutions filled with human engineers and human marketing people will not produce a cornucopia of goodies much faster than goodies appear today. Particularly, they won't engage in highly speculative ventures if they are acting within the confines of an economy like the one we have today.
We can be sure that we will get much faster computers over the next few decades. There's stuff in the pipeline to replace silicon when photolithography hits the wall. The thing that concerns me is the possibility that in order to get the Singularity we all hope for, we'll need AIs with transhumanly sublime insight (TSI), which I don't think we can guarantee.
I don't think design-anything boxes will require TSI; I think they can get by with brute-force speed (BFS) because a lot of design work can be accomplished by searching design spaces, in either an exhaustive or limited fashion (limited being genetic algorithms, gradient descent, etc). A nice byproduct of a BFS-only Singularity is that humans will stay in control of things.
The website has a lot of conjecture about the role of economics in the unfolding of the Singularity. While it's ludicrous to imagine that computers will start charging users for the privilege of running code, it's still possible that people will find themselves paying hefty subscription fees to design-anything service providers, and the software used by those services may be covetously guarded. But that state of affairs obviously wouldn't be stable in the long term.
March 26th, 2001 at 4:37 PM
Re:Ad Hominem & Burkhead Replies!
Yes, again, that's why I thought it made sense for me to call attention to this fact. Burkhead does not put this up on his main index page for the nanotech stuff, but when you wander down those pages you find little sidetracks that lead off into weirder material. I was following the nanotech threads but found myself in "post-Nazi transhumanism" and "Yoga at the cellular level". The gateway was the Singularity page.
March 30th, 2001 at 9:35 AM
Re:Critical thinking about AI isn't such a bad ide
While I only skimmed the article, one point struck me as humorous, that corporations are examples of an enhanced intellect system. From my inside view of corporate America, the Peter Principle is alive and well, if not actively thriving. A corporation is a poor model for a higher intellect.