From: Bryan Bishop (kanzure@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Jun 24 2008 - 21:10:57 MDT
On Monday 05 May 2008, Stuart Armstrong wrote:
> Speculating about society after a singularity is pointless. It leads
> to poorly thought-out ideas and is dominated by speculative wishful
> thinking. A complete waste of time.
I disagree. There's a way of doing speculation that allows strategizing
for goals based off of predicted available mechanisms. So, given a
singularity, certain mechanisms to solving problems will be available.
I'd like to see some examples of what you are talking about.
> The aspect of a post-singularity world I'd like to look at is the
> absence of signalling. If we had an advanced AI, it should be able to
> fully understand the personality and abilities of an individual
> human. If it would accept to reveal this information to humans, then
> we would live in a society with perfect understanding of each other.
I suppose you're taking the AI-only-approach (Anissimovic) singularity.
I don't know what an understanding of personality would entail. The
idea of personality is pop psychology anyway, so saying something like
this makes me wonder if you know what the ai would be knowing in the
first place.
> This would negate the need for signaling - people would no longer be
> driven to art, education, competitive sports, positional goods, and
> other ways of showing off. A good proportion of the current economy
> and culture would vanish.
You think that showing off is why people do things? Is that what you are
saying? As for the economy, just ignore it. As for the culture, I don't
see what you mean. Would the information be deleted for some reason?
> Also, other types of economy and governments would be viable (if they
> still exist). Benevolent dictators might become the best system of
> government; utopian communes would be successful, stable social
> organisms; friendship as the main social link would decay.
Why would dictators be the best way to govern? Why govern at all? Since
it's the singularity, everybody could have personalized tools that
allow them to work together without an overarching, monolithic
government
> The more serious question is whether we want this AI-modulated
> empathy, or would prefer some remnants of signalling.
You asserted above that this form of talk is a waste of time, but here
you're wondering whether or not we want/prefer it ? Please make up your
mind. :-)
- Bryan
________________________________________
http://heybryan.org/
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