From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Sun Jun 04 2006 - 09:29:05 MDT
At 11:06 PM 6/1/2006 -0700, Mary wrote:
snip
>Before we can even begin to seriously address the critical conditions
>necessary to create any kind of transcendental AI or even a pervasive
>global technocracy, we may well first have to address the human propensity
>for totalitarianism, fascism, sociopathy, superstition and genocide.
Like all human psychological traits, they have an evolved origin. Even the
triggers for genocide can be understood by looking to the recurrent
conditions that periodically occurred in our hunter gatherer past.
But discussion in this area skates near the edge where the thread snippers
cut it off. Unfortunately, I don't know of a place on the net where the
underlying subject, evolutionary psychology, can be discussed with
knowledgeable participants.
>A world where only a tiny handful of obscenely weathy people, using the
>fruits of technology to enslave and control the greater masses will never
>achieve the end we envision or hope for... those in power will never allow
>a run-away intelligence to be born let alone exist. That would certainly
>be the beginning of the end of their control.
Your last statement is certainly true, and not just for the obscenely
wealthy. But the previous statement,
> "those in power will never allow a run-away intelligence to be born let
> alone exist."
assumes that people have more predictive power than they do. Our minds
were shaped to be good at reproductive success in a stone age
environment. The obscenely wealthy are no better at predicting the outcome
of ascendant AI then the rest of us.
A while back I posted a chapter from a book I have been working on that
described medical AIs storing bodies and uploading the entire population of
Africa. The chapter's function in the larger story is to explain what
happened to the physical world population--which at the time of the story
is very nearly gone.
There was no discussion at all about the material so I don't know if the
implication of a program to improve the lot of 3rd world countries was
noted. (It was so well adapted to fulfilling human needs that it got out
of control and the same thing inadvertently happened to the rest of the world.)
Keith Henson
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