Re: Why are there so few Singulatarians?

From: Bellious Moon (bellious_moon_99@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat May 10 2003 - 21:45:46 MDT


--- Zeph Campbell <zephc@hotlinehq.com> wrote:
>
> On Saturday, May 10, 2003, at 03:05 PM,
> Tommeteor@aol.com wrote:
>
>
> I applaud the efforts of the SIAI for wanting to
> raise the
> consciousness of the masses with respect to AI and
> the Singularity. I
> am more or less in agreement with Eliezer in "Future
> Shock Levels" in
> as much as I don't think everyone should have to
> suddenly come
> face-to-face with an almost certain inevitability -
> indeed it may be
> counterproductive to the goals of the SIAI
> (reactionary responses from
> religious groups and various under-educated policy
> makers). Not too
> long from now (a decade or two), I hope that most
> people will become
> familiar and fairly comfortable with the benefits of
> intelligent
> systems and maybe nanotechnology, such that the
> introduction of Strong,
> recursively-enhancing AI will be less a shock.
> Therefore I believe
> it's better to let the course of the world's
> adaptation to
> technological change occur naturally, rather than
> forcing everyone into
> it too quickly.

There are a number of secular people out there who
have some idea of what the singularity is and oppose
it on the ground that advanced technology either poses
a great threat to the environment and/or it will be
used for oppressive purposes. And for one I believe
the public is warranted to be suspicious of highly
disruptive technology. I want to know who is going to
control this technology and what kind of safeguards
are going to be put in place to prevent it from being
put to qustionable use. I'm beginning to agree with
Ted Kaczynski that perhaps the invention of
agriculture itself was a mistake. A neolithic,
hunting-gathering lifestyle with no big centralized
governments and oppressive economies is starting to
sound good to me. Perhaps the Luddites were right all
along.

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