Re: answers I'd like from an SI

From: Norman Noman (overturnedchair@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 16 2007 - 21:56:17 MST


On Nov 16, 2007 6:30 PM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp@gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe if you asked the AI it would just tell you that it was
> impossible, or only possible in a subpopulation of people (about 1%)
> who have a susceptibility to developing psychosis. Maybe it would also
> tell you that a reliable strategy for taking over the world given just
> an Internet connection is also impossible, or computationally
> intractable, or that the question of its possibility is undecidable.
> It's irrational to assume that an advanced enough AI would be able to
> do *anything at all*.

I don't assume it could do anything, just that it could do basically
anything which is possible. The world of the possible is a very
strange place, and one which we have explored only the tiniest tiniest
corner of.

The idea that we have mostly explored the possible when it comes to
the human brain and what it can be made to do, is absurd to me. Our
understanding of the mind's limits is so poor that we can be outdone
by accidents, as in the case of the man who gained unusual powers of
memory after being hit in the head by a baseball.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:01:00 MDT