Singularity

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

Scientist Says Humans Will Reach the Singularity Within 21 Years (popularmechanics.com)

 

How will xtians feel about this? 

 

Better yet, how do YOU feel about this? 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

 

Sounds interesting.  But since I know virtually nothing about it, it sounds kinda like something from Star Trek.  But I am having trouble understanding the concept of "singularity".  Would that be something that would be eventually passed down through DNA from parent to child?  If not, would it really be singularity?  Seems to me like it would be more like an "add on" feature.    Maybe he is being a little dramatic??

[pantheory]

On 8/9/2024 at 3:58 PM, moxieflux66 said:

Scientist Says Humans Will Reach the Singularity Within 21 Years (popularmechanics.com)

 

How will xtians feel about this? 

 

Better yet, how do YOU feel about this? 

 

The words being used, Singularity and Artificial Intelligence have little meaning to me. I have been programming computers for many decades. Artificial Intelligence in the scientific sense is simply a good computer program whereby, like humans, computers can assess the odds, make evaluations and recommendations that can be totally wrong, just like humans. This could have been done sixty years ago, but granted, the computer programs are far more sophisticated now, their memories can be thousands of times bigger, compute thousands of times faster, and sometimes are almost a thousand times smaller also.

 

Very few people will ever understand how this works unless they are well-educated on the subject, which means almost no Christians

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

On 8/9/2024 at 7:36 PM, Weezer said:

 

Sounds interesting.  But since I know virtually nothing about it, it sounds kinda like something from Star Trek.  But I am having trouble understanding the concept of "singularity".  Would that be something that would be eventually passed down through DNA from parent to child?  If not, would it really be singularity?  Seems to me like it would be more like an "add on" feature.    Maybe he is being a little dramatic??

 via Nanobots. 

 

Kurzweil also believes that humans will achieve a millionfold intelligence by 2045, aided by brain interfaces formed with nanobots non-invasively inserted into our capillaries.

 

Seems fascinating and creepy at the same time. Wonder how that can be done non-invasively? 

 

On 8/10/2024 at 12:31 PM, pantheory said:

sometimes are almost a thousand times smaller also.

 

Nanobots. Whoa. In our bloodstreams and brains. 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

Given enough time, perhaps the whole world will become like the Borgs on Star Trek.  

[◊ Weezer ◊]

If you think about it seriously, it is scary stuff!  HA!  And so is todays politics!

[pantheory]

10 hours ago, moxieflux66 said:

 

 

"Kurzweil also believes that humans will achieve a millionfold intelligence by 2045, aided by brain interfaces formed with nanobots non-invasively inserted into our capillaries."

 

Seems fascinating and creepy at the same time. Wonder how that can be done non-invasively? 

 

 

Nanobots. Whoa. In our bloodstreams and brains. 

 

The average human intelligence of the world has been steadily going down for about 50 years now. It has been shown that a good part of intelligence is inherited with few exceptions. Lesser intelligent people now have a much greater percentage of children and populations of their countries are quickly getting bigger, while in many countries of the western world the population growth is negative. Computers and their programming relates to knowledge which is generally unrelated to intelligence. Intelligence as it is defined by the dictionary and by tests, is related to aptitudes and problem solving, not to knowledge. Aptitudes relate to the real understandings of the world. Aptitude learning is extremely slow. It would be close to impossible for some to learn some aptitudes without the strongest will to learn and the will to study it for years even with a computer link. The best computer programming today are related to knowledge, and the rudimentary understandings of aptitudes no better than a young child. When one sees totally new theories , important scientific theories totally changed or trashed, totally different textbooks written, full of logical, rhetorical, and unanswered questions, then we will know that the age of computer intelligence has arrived IMHO.

 

Kurzweil, above, is a couple of hundred years off IMHO. The very best computers of today might have the aptitudes no better than a ten year old, but can have the knowledge of many entire encyclopedias. Once a reliable mind-computer link is developed that is purely mental someday, then the smartest humans will have access to an encyclopedia of knowledge and other capabilities. But without high enough aptitudes to start with, the average human will have no more benefit from such a computer mind-link than he does now with a laptop in front of him or her, only one could do it much faster without typing anything in.

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

1 hour ago, Weezer said:

If you think about it seriously, it is scary stuff!  HA!  And so is todays politics!

 

Does that mean cyborg politicians?? 

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

25 minutes ago, pantheory said:

When one sees totally new theories , important scientific theories totally changed or trashed, totally different textbooks written, full of logical, rhetorical, and unanswered questions, then we will know that the age of computer intelligence has arrived IMHO.

 

Good points! 

26 minutes ago, pantheory said:

Kurzweil, above, is a couple of hundred years off IMHO. The very best computers of today might have the aptitudes no better than a ten year old, but can have the knowledge of many entire encyclopedias. Once a reliable mind-computer link is developed that is purely mental someday, then the smartest humans will have access to an encyclopedia of knowledge and other capabilities. But without high enough aptitudes to start with, the average human will have no more benefit from such a computer mind-link than he does now with a laptop in front of him or her, only one could do it much faster without typing anything in.

So are you saying Elon Musk is barking up the wrong tree? Or shit outta luck?? 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

6 hours ago, moxieflux66 said:

 

Does that mean cyborg politicians?? 

 

Come to think of it, they do seem to have the same mind in a lot of ways.  They know how to put a spin on any subject.  

[disillusioned]

Meh.

AGI is not a thing yet. It may or may not become one. We'll see. I tend to think that AGI probably can be developed, but I don't think it should be, and I tend to think that it won't be. I think that issues related to energy scarcity will probably nip this in the bud before it really becomes a thing, but we'll see.

I am quite concerned about the fact that we now have a population whose intelligence is increasingly limited to their ability to operate a "smart" phone. That doesn't bode well for, well, anything really, but especially for future innovations.

[pantheory]

On 8/15/2024 at 5:44 PM, Weezer said:

 

Come to think of it, they do seem to have the same mind in a lot of ways.  They know how to put a spin on any subject.  

 

Yeah, you have to spin a top very rapidly on a vertical axis for it to stay in one place, for it to spin for a long time without obviously wobbling. A keen eye can perceive the precursors to wobble, however,  before actual wobble becomes obvious,  similar to politics I expect

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

On 8/18/2024 at 3:54 PM, disillusioned said:

I think that issues related to energy scarcity will probably nip this in the bud before it really becomes a thing, but we'll see.

How so? 

 

On 8/18/2024 at 3:54 PM, disillusioned said:

I am quite concerned about the fact that we now have a population whose intelligence is increasingly limited to their ability to operate a "smart" phone. That doesn't bode well for, well, anything really, but especially for future innovations.

And people my age in general aren't even that good at basic cell phone operation (including me! )

But good point. Thank you. 

[pantheory]

On 8/15/2024 at 10:54 AM, moxieflux66 said:

 

Good points! 

So are you saying Elon Musk is barking up the wrong tree? Or shit outta luck?? 

 

No, not barking up the wrong tree. But even Musk is now saying that he's hoping for new space-age technology beyond his own inventions, not meaning AI.  Otherwise his hopes for Mars, in his opinion, might fall short of what he hoped for within his lifetime, or even within this century.

[disillusioned]

On 8/19/2024 at 9:32 PM, moxieflux66 said:

How so? 

 

Well, our economic system is predicated on perpetual growth. And, the growth of the economy has an almost perfect one-to-one correspondence with growth in energy. But we know that we have to reduce fossil fuel use, or climate change will be catastrophic. So either we reduce fossil fuel use intentionally, which will vastly reduce energy supply, or we don't, and climate disasters will increasingly break the system by force, leading to a reduction in energy supply. Even leaving climate aside, it simply isn't mathematically possible for the growth to continue much longer. Growth of 3% per year means a doubling roughly every 23 years. So by ~2045, we would need twice as much energy as we have now to maintain this growth. I don't believe that this can be done.

 

We are headed for a major change in the way our society operates. The era of growth will end, soon. And as it comes to an end, the energy that is available will probably be funnelled to production and distribution of critical resources, not developments in AGI, which require quite a lot of computing power, and therefore quite a lot of energy.

 

I could be wrong, but if so the developments would need to be very quick indeed. It's possible, I guess, but still, to what end? Best case scenario, AGI solves the energy and climate crises, and everything works out beautifully. Every other scenario that I can think of isn't pretty.

 

Either way, the coming couple of decades are bound to be interesting.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

If things keep going “as is”, we will need to find another planet to colonize. 

[disillusioned]

2 hours ago, Weezer said:

If things keep going “as is”, we will need to find another planet to colonize. 

 

Yes indeed, but then a related problem arises. None of the planets in our solar system are suitable, so we have to look elsewhere (no, Mars is not a candidate. We might be able to build a station there, but terraforming Mars is a complete pipe dream, except perhaps in the very long term). Then we have the problem of how to actually get to a planet outside our solar system, which is not insignificant, and again, would require a lot of energy. And this assumes that we have actually found such a planet, which is also problematic.

 

Personally, I think we'd be best off recognizing that we're in overshoot, and getting used to making do with less. I think that's unlikely to happen though. I think that we will kick this can right up until it falls off a cliff. I foresee a great deal of pain, hopefully followed by a new, steadier state society.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

7 hours ago, disillusioned said:

Personally, I think we'd be best off recognizing that we're in overshoot, and getting used to making do with less. I think that's unlikely to happen though. I think that we will kick this can right up until it falls off a cliff. I foresee a great deal of pain, hopefully followed by a new, steadier state society.

 

I tend to agree with you.  As a whole we humans tend to be a near sighted and narcissistic group.  With not much wisdom for using the volumes of  information available.

[☆ moxieflux66 ☆]

On 8/22/2024 at 12:22 PM, pantheory said:

 

No, not barking up the wrong tree. But even Musk is now saying that he's hoping for new space-age technology beyond his own inventions, not meaning AI.  Otherwise his hopes for Mars, in his opinion, might fall short of what he hoped for within his lifetime, or even within this century.

I was actually referring to his brain chips. 

 

13 hours ago, disillusioned said:

 

Well, our economic system is predicated on perpetual growth. And, the growth of the economy has an almost perfect one-to-one correspondence with growth in energy. But we know that we have to reduce fossil fuel use, or climate change will be catastrophic. So either we reduce fossil fuel use intentionally, which will vastly reduce energy supply, or we don't, and climate disasters will increasingly break the system by force, leading to a reduction in energy supply. Even leaving climate aside, it simply isn't mathematically possible for the growth to continue much longer. Growth of 3% per year means a doubling roughly every 23 years. So by ~2045, we would need twice as much energy as we have now to maintain this growth. I don't believe that this can be done.

 

We are headed for a major change in the way our society operates. The era of growth will end, soon. And as it comes to an end, the energy that is available will probably be funnelled to production and distribution of critical resources, not developments in AGI, which require quite a lot of computing power, and therefore quite a lot of energy.

 

I could be wrong, but if so the developments would need to be very quick indeed. It's possible, I guess, but still, to what end? Best case scenario, AGI solves the energy and climate crises, and everything works out beautifully. Every other scenario that I can think of isn't pretty.

 

Either way, the coming couple of decades are bound to be interesting.

 

Thank you. This makes a lot of sense. I agree the monetary system is coming to its theoretical end. What if we ditched money and made resources our currency? Could AI distribute resources for the world? 

[disillusioned]

7 hours ago, moxieflux66 said:

Thank you. This makes a lot of sense. I agree the monetary system is coming to its theoretical end. What if we ditched money and made resources our currency? Could AI distribute resources for the world? 

 

AI could absolutely be developed to optimize resource distribution. You wouldn't need AGI for that either. It's a pretty well-defined problem that a regular AI could be trained on. The thing is, we don't even need AI to solve that problem. We could do it ourselves. We just don't really want to.

 

Similarly, AI could probably be developed to solve problems related to optimizing the shift away from fossil fuels. But I have no reason to think that people would do what it recommended. We already don't listen to human scientists and experts, why would we listen to a machine? Especially when the machine is going to be developed by...human scientists and experts?! The conspiracy theories write themselves.

 

When we finally hit planetary limits and our society collapses/contracts/simplifies or whatever, after the dust settles the people who are left will have to rebuild. I think it's possible that AI could play a role in constructing a better society in such a scenario. But there are too many unknowns. We just don't know what that world is going to look like.

[◊ Krowb ◊]

16 hours ago, disillusioned said:

 

Yes indeed, but then a related problem arises. None of the planets in our solar system are suitable, so we have to look elsewhere (no, Mars is not a candidate. We might be able to build a station there, but terraforming Mars is a complete pipe dream, except perhaps in the very long term). Then we have the problem of how to actually get to a planet outside our solar system, which is not insignificant, and again, would require a lot of energy. And this assumes that we have actually found such a planet, which is also problematic.

 

Personally, I think we'd be best off recognizing that we're in overshoot, and getting used to making do with less. I think that's unlikely to happen though. I think that we will kick this can right up until it falls off a cliff. I foresee a great deal of pain, hopefully followed by a new, steadier state society.

 

We have two related problems with any planets outside our own, first:  we're stuck at the bottom of a gravity well and it takes an enormous amount of energy to escape our planet. Secondly, without a functioning core to create magnetic fields, Mars atmosphere was and will continue to be stripped away by solar wind.  Terraforming is a fool's errand without a magnetosphere and can you imagine the energy required to restart a planet's dead core?

[◊ Krowb ◊]

32 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

We could do it ourselves. We just don't really want to.

 

This 1,000x.

[walterpthefirst]

This might be of interest to Moxieflux66 as well as to those discussing the Martian atmosphere.

 

 

NASA’s Oxygen-Generating Experiment MOXIE Completes Mars Mission - NASA

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

[disillusioned]

7 hours ago, Krowb said:

 

We have two related problems with any planets outside our own, first:  we're stuck at the bottom of a gravity well and it takes an enormous amount of energy to escape our planet. Secondly, without a functioning core to create magnetic fields, Mars atmosphere was and will continue to be stripped away by solar wind.  Terraforming is a fool's errand without a magnetosphere and can you imagine the energy required to restart a planet's dead core?

 

Right, which is why I say Mars is a pipe dream. We certainly could build stations on the moon and Mars, as well as potentially some other rocks in our solar system, but the idea that another rock orbiting our sun will ever be anything close to as hospitable as Earth is is fatuous. Even in the worst case, full blown nuclear war future, Earth is still the best place for us, and it isn't close.

 

Looking elsewhere, it still seems very unlikely to me that we might find another world that is the right size/density, with the right kind of magnetosphere, atmosphere, and climate. We are, after all, an evolved species. This is quite literally our natural environment. Even 20% more or less gravity would have untold effects on health over the long term. And if were to find such a world it would likely be much too far away to get to without FTL travel (another pipe dream), and it would probably also already be populated with life of its own, which would raise serious concerns, both ethical and practical. Are we planning on conquering this hypothetical world and slaughtering its inhabitants? Are we planning on moving in peacefully? Who says they want us? Who says we would win in a war of the species?

 

The planet we're looking for is this one. We should try to fix the problems here rather than looking for an exit plan.

 

BTW, I'm very pro space exploration and research. I just don't think it's a viable exit strategy for humanity.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

2 hours ago, disillusioned said:

The planet we're looking for is this one. We should try to fix the problems here rather than looking for an exit plan.

 

BTW, I'm very pro space exploration and research. 

 

I agree on both points. 

 

We need some "territory" in space for our protection from rogue earthly advesaries.  But isn't there a problem with all the space junk that is up there?  Crashing into space starions and each other?  And some of it falling back to earth without completely burning up on the way down??  Are we going to wind up shooting down, or disabling other countries satellites, etc.??  It may get very interesting.