Re: About that E-mail:...

From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Sat Sep 30 2000 - 19:57:06 MDT


Ben, I'd just be happy if you guys started making some money and IPOed :-)

Tell your investor newsletter guys that it's been a long dry summer newswise.

(Brian the investor in Intelligenesis...)

Ben Goertzel wrote:
>
> I really doubt this is true... I don't think that anyone will be hunted down
> or otherwise
> harassed until demonstrable superhuman intelligence has been ACHIEVED
>
> For instance, I've had a start-up company devoted to creating superhuman
> intelligence for
> 3 years now, and no one has harassed me, because NO ONE BELIEVES WE CAN
> REALLY DO IT...
>
> Once the thinking machine is demonstrated -- ~then~ we'll have to start to
> worry...
>
> ben
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-sl4@sysopmind.com [mailto:owner-sl4@sysopmind.com]On Behalf
> > Of Josh Yotty
> > Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2000 8:05 PM
> > To: Sl4
> > Subject: About that E-mail:...
> >
> >
> > I'm willing to bet the people working toward superhuman
> > intelligence will be hunted down. Of course, the people hunting
> > us down will be irrational, ignorant, narrowminded and stupid. If
> > I remember correctly, less than ten percent of the world's
> > population can be classified as rational. (This is temperament.
> > Check out what I mean at http://www.keirsey.com)
> >
> > Images of the Salem witch trials come to mind. We probably will
> > not be safe. People will automatically think that we are trying to:
> >
> > A) Take over the world.
> > B) "Purify" the world by killing most of humanity
> > C) Any other stupid reason you can think of.
> >
> > Humanity, as a whole, is stupid. America is made up of media
> > zombies who act on gossip and whims, and rumors. Having an
> > original and true thought really hurts. In fact, Bill Joy's "Why
> > the future doesn't need us" on Wired had a writing from Kazynski
> > (I know that's not how it is spelled; you know, the Unabomber)
> > that stated, basically, superhuman intelligence would either
> > destroy us all or take away all meaning from life.
> >
> > Well, anyway, we might have to move to another country or
> > gradually introduce the concept to other people or not inform the
> > general public (either not saying anything or hiding it behind
> > lots of technospeak, computer jargon, and large-word gobbledygook).
> >
> > What do you think?
> > Josh Yotty
> > | Orion Digital |
> > oriondigital@techie.com
> > http://www.crosswinds.net/~oriondigital/
> > ______________________________________________
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> >

-- 
Brian Atkins
Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.intelligence.org/


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