RE: An essay I just wrote on the Singularity.

From: Yan King Yin (y.k.y@lycos.com)
Date: Wed Jan 07 2004 - 18:37:06 MST


From: Tommy McCabe <rocketjet314@yahoo.com>
>> The 19C industrialization also created abundance,
>> but
>> that abundance was not equally distributed among
>> all.
>> From a historical perspective it seems the same will
>> go on for the 2nd industrialization (replacement of
>> jobs by intelligent machines).
>
>Intelligent machines? What do you mean here?

AIs (not necessarily superhuman ones).

>The first industrial revolution provided the capacity
>for preexisting manufacturing processes to be
>automated to some extent, thus making goods more
>widespread. The Singularity, as a matter of fact even
>just nanotech without superintelligence, will enable
>us to convert rocks into goods. There is an inherent
>limit as to how many shirts you can make, regardless
>of the speed or number of factories, due to the
>limited amount of raw materials. However, when you can
>use anything (yes, literally, anything) as a raw
>material, that problem kind of goes away.

Abundance per se does not solve the problem of
wealth disparity. We produce more food than can feed
the whole world yet starvation persists. The issue is
who owns what. How does AIs change the dynamics
qualitatively? Seems that it does NOT...

>> Does a much better way of organization than free-
>> -market economy exist? I don't know but I do notice
>> there is some similarity between the free market and
>> natural selection.
>
>I don't know, and please elaborate on said similarity.

I didn't really have a point there... maybe I should
say I don't know either... =/

YKY

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