Re: How hard a Singularity?

From: James Higgins (jameshiggins@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Jun 23 2002 - 12:46:39 MDT


At 10:05 PM 6/22/2002 -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote:
>James Higgins wrote:
>>Why the HELL would anyone working on the Singularity obey the law? By
>>the time anyone even realized that they didn't it would be too late.
>>Not to mention the fact that it takes government bodies YEARS to
>>understand moderately complicated technology. Look at the Internet for
>>an example, many government bodies still don't get it; and that is based
>>on 20+ year old technology...
>
>Uh huh. Go tell your local congress critters and law enforcement that you
>and your gang are going to do something that will change everything
>irrevocably and that you will do it regardless of what they think or do
>and that there is no conceivable way they can stop you. Click the
>stopwatch at the end of the speech. Let me know how long it took before
>you were put away for a psych evaluation and/or tossed in prison with no
>access to computers if they took you seriously.

It is tempting to do exactly as you suggest (since it would prove the
point), but I have better things to do with my time.

a) If they think I'm nuts the worst they could do is order a psych
evaluation. I'm not nuts so in a few days (at most) I'm free to do as I wish.

b) If they take me seriously they can't jail me because creating an AI is
not illegal. They could work on passing laws to make it illegal but that
would take considerable time (possibly years), especially since there is no
"obvious" and present danger

c) Most likely they would just say "uh huh" and have me escorted out of
the building, because they believe they have better things to do with their
time...

James Higgins



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