From: James Higgins (jameshiggins@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Jun 29 2002 - 13:10:26 MDT
At 09:39 PM 6/28/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>James Higgins wrote:
>>At 03:26 PM 6/28/2002 -0400, Smigrodzki, Rafal wrote:
>>
>>>Ben wrote:
>>>
>>>I think there will come a time where a lot of computer hardware is the
>>>key to further progress. But that's it, really... I don't think any
>>>other kind of "muscle" providable by gov't or big industry will be important
>>>
>>>
>>>### So the SAI's first interlocutors *might* be the generals, or god
>>>forbid, the current commander in chief, if re-elected! Scary.
>>
>>Could we please stay clear of political opinions on here. I'm certain
>>many people on here do not agree with your opinion about the "current
>>commander in chief" and all your doing here is creating the opportunity
>>for a useless (in the eyes of the Singularity) debate.
>
>Why? The debate needs some grounding. When there are proposals afloat to
>have the FAI be developed by military and under orders from the Commander
>in Chief it is very important to look at what that can mean in very real
>life terms starting precisely from where we are. Anyone that would not be
>scaried given the current situations and proclivities of such deployment
>and control of SAI is in my opinion vastly disconnected from reality -
>quite dangerously so.
I'm not at all opposed to such discussions, just pointless political jabs
(in any direction).
>>Besides, most views of a political figure's actual morals, based solely
>>on their "public life" or career, are almost certainly to be wrong.
>>That includes my views on political figures I dislike as well. If the
>>situation you suggest were to appear likely I'd like to get them involved
>>in a forum such as this for many months before making any personal
>>judgements about their morals (of course this would never happen - though).
>
>All I need to do is look at the public figure's public actions and
>statements to decide what I think of them qua public figure and how much
>of a danger I believe they represent. The stated endless War plans of the
>current administration are more than sufficient to gauge the advisability
>of having any real AI owned by the military or the government
I believe if you put a highly moral and intelligent person, who truly did
have the interest of the people above their own, into Congress they
wouldn't look any different from an external observer. Changes need to be
made to make political offices in the US less correctable. But as it
stands every senator & representative has to play the game to get anything
done. I tend to think this discussion (corruption of politics) is off
topic for SL4, but I may be wrong.
James Higgins
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