From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Tue Jun 19 2001 - 02:35:02 MDT
Evan Reese wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Samantha Atkins" <samantha@objectent.com>
> To: <sl4@sysopmind.com>
> Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2001 12:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Effective(?) AI Jail
>
> > Jimmy Wales wrote:
> >
> >
> > >
> > > If we're that worried about it, perhaps we should stop being advocates
> > > for the singularity and start a terrorist organization to do everything
> > > we can do stop technological progress, right?
> > >
> >
> > Naw. Just slow down the economy so much that a lot of high tech
> > companies of the scary variety either go belly-up or never get
> > started. What's that you say? The economy *has* slowed down
> > and this *has* occurred? Do you think? Naw. That would be
> > paranoid.
>
> Which economy is that? The U.S. economy, the world economy ...? Doesn't
> matter; a few percentage points give or take in the GDP won't change things
> much in say a 20 year time frame. Besides, the U.S. economy has only slowed
> down in relative terms from an unusually - traditionally anyway - high
> growth rate in the '90s.
You missed my point. This dip did wipe out a lot of high-tech
companies, including at least one strong AI effort, and halted
the creation of many more. Sometimes I wonder if it was by
accident or part of a ploy to slow things down for a bit
longer.
Also, I think it is a serious mistake to think that
technological singularity is inevitable. A serious cultural
revolution, a world war, America being overrun by a repressive
fundie government, changing the code of the internet enough to
make it a tool of massive regulation and oppression - these and
other things could wipe out a lot of our most cherished dreams
and assumptions for at least our lifetimes and that of our
children.
- samantha
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