From: Marc Geddes (marc_geddes@yahoo.co.nz)
Date: Thu Dec 09 2004 - 21:42:01 MST
--- Martin Striz <metastriz@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> The problem with the human body is pleiotropy.
The problem with the human body is that it's really
only designed to last us until we breed - 20 years or
so. After that, it starts to fall apart, the
probability of death per unit time doubling every 8
years after you turn 20.
>
> But FAI has also thus far proven to be nothing but
> hype, so on what do you base
> your assessment? I'm not trying to be an asshole;
> I'm just trying to ask an
> honest question. AI research itself has had a poor
> track record, so why do you
> assume future AI research will be more prodigious
> than future nanotech,
> cryonics, biomedical research, etc.?
I think I now understand all the fundamental
principles required for FAI. I see how to do it.
Give me 30 years to develop the fundamentals into a
rigorous formal theory (ie. work out the maths) and I
think I could probably do FAI myself. So there's a
much stronger theoretical foundation for AI now.
Another reason I think AI is the better prospect is
because of the tremendous complexity of the human
body. It is reasonable to expect that the
bio-medical route should be able to achieve modest
gains in life-spans, but probably no more an extra
20-40 years on average: "As gerontologists are fond
of pointing out, you could solve all the major
age-related diseases, and you’d still add only about
15 or 20 years to our current average life span of
nearly 80." You wouldn't be able to push life-span
beyond 120 without making really big changes to the
entire human body system.
So the bio-medical route is at best a stop-gap until
FAI. Nano-medical might be able to get better gains,
but nano-tech really needs FAI to be able to control
safely. Only AI would be smart enough to get a handle
on the problem and make truly substantial gains in
life-span.
=====
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- Gen. John Stark
"The Universe...or nothing!"
-H.G.Wells
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