From: fudley (fuddley@fastmail.fm)
Date: Sat Jul 10 2004 - 23:37:34 MDT
A Federal court ruled yesterday that the Yucca Mountain repository for
nuclear waste in Nevada was illegal because the guarantee that no
radiation would leak for 10,000 years was too short; the court found
credible evidence that in 270,000 years the radiation just outside the
fence would be 60 times higher than background. Imagine if someone in
the Paleolithic had told our Cro-Magnon semi human ancestors 270,000
years ago during the Ice Age that they couldn’t use that new fangled
thing called fire until they solved the problem of global warming
produced by greenhouse gasses and found a good substitute for the finite
supply of oil. I can’t help but think plans to ensure that a super
intelligent AI will behave in ways we want it to thousands and even
millions of years in the future is at least as misplaced as that silly
federal judge. I’d say right now 20 years is about the limit, and in
time than number will decrease; trying now to solve problems that won’t
become acute until after that date is a waste of time. For anyone who
takes the ideas behind the Singularity seriously this should be obvious.
John K Clark
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