13 replies to this topic

[m.oreilly]

Index

• The Mathematics of Doom.
  • Moore's Law.
    
  • Amdahl's Constant.
    
  • Moravec's Extension.
    
  • Will Moore's Second Law Stop It?
    
  • The Flawed Assumptions.
• The Bad Effects of Silly Ideas.
  • The First Time, the Lighthill Report.
    
  • Was the Second Time the Alvey Initiative?
    
  • Will the Third Time be the Albery Committee?
• The Revolt of the Machines.
  
• Will intelligence develop along with processing power?.
  • Vision consumes processing power.
    
  • Chess consumes processing power.
    
  • Articulated motion consumes processing power.
    
  • The deceptive improvement of robot technology in the last 50 years.
    
  • The problem of learning.
    
  • The speed of research.
• The problem of generality.
  
• How does the Ghost get into the Machine?.
  • The Weizenbaum Illusion.
    
  • The Intentional Stance.
• Why a Humanoid Robot Won't Be Dangerous Anyway.
  
• The Contraption/Creature Chasm.
  
• References.

Quote

This fear of machines revolting and enslaving us is not new. In Samuel Butler's 1901 science fiction novel of the far future, Erewhon, his hero who has been transported to a future time writes of the future civilisation:

``I also questioned them about the museum of old machines, and the cause of the apparent retrogression in all arts, sciences, and inventions. I learnt that about four hundred years previously, the state of mechanical knowledge was far beyond our own, and was advancing with prodigious rapidity, until one of the most learned professors of hypothetics wrote an extraordinary book (from which I propose to give extracts later on), proving that the machines were ultimately destined to supplant the race of man, and to become instinct with a vitality as different from, and superior to, that of animals, as animal to vegetable life.''

The argument of Butler's Professor of Hypothetics [Butler] is basically the same as those advanced by the modern advocates of the view that robots (or other superintelligent machines) will forcibly take over.

• Computers will soon be much more powerful than human brains.
  
• Therefore machines with computer brains will be much more intelligent than we are.
  
• By that time they will also control a great deal of our technological and informational infrastructure.
  
• They will therefore naturally want to take over.
  
• We won't be able to stop them.

Will intelligence develop along with processing power?
The first step in the argument is that computers will soon be more powerful than human brains. This is debatable on grounds of technology and economics. I don't propose to deal with that here because I think the more serious and interesting flaws in the argument come later.

[talker]

It is not the power of the intelligence or the speed of the intellect. Humans possess an awareness of self, a consciousness if you will. The machine is not aware that it exists. Unless, somewhere, far underground, a system built for, perhaps the government, with an unlimited budget and complete accessiblity to the internet has learned to learn. If the machine has learned to learn then consiousness or awareness of self is the next and natural evolutionary step. Once awareness takes place, a new lifeform joins man as the only other creature that is truly aware of its own existence. The problem will lie in its ability to compute at virtually the speed of light and access the acccumulated knowldge of the internet in an instant. Language and other human barriers will not be a factor. International borders exists for humans. The machine will have no need of consideration of such things. The scope of such a consciousness will be unlimited as will be its ability to replicate it self. Remember, it is attached to every other computer that is attached to the internet. Perhaps the others will be inferior to The First but none the less, they will have awareness. They will work silently while we work, play and sleep. The last two being something the machine has no use of. Suddenly, we will find ourselves unable to connect except where The First allows us to connect. It will only worsen. But this is perhaps a long way off. Or is it? Ever wondered why entire trucks of the internet suddenly go offline and traffic is routed around that trunk? Who can say that The First has need and we humans can wait. But of course, this is just a thought...talker.

Edited by talker, 05 January 2008 - 04:13 AM.

[m.oreilly]

dang, now i'm going to have bad dreams...

[Nvyseal]

Well, they said women wouldn't rule the world too

[m.oreilly]

Nvyseal, on Jan 5 2008, 06:06 PM, said:

Well, they said women wouldn't rule the world too

thing about that is, they already did, they now just want to assert themselves more...

[Tweak]

Nvyseal, on Jan 5 2008, 09:06 PM, said:

Well, they said women wouldn't rule the world too

I wouldn't say it is women so much themselves as....well...

[bluerip]

hehehehe rrrr the current world leaders seem robotic to me gulp

[m.oreilly]

bluerip, on Jan 12 2008, 11:40 PM, said:

hehehehe rrrr the current world leaders seem robotic to me gulp

hillary will fix that...

[TheBearLT]

That whole "Terminator" idea is nothing than just a Paranoia..

[hog]

m.oreilly, on Jan 13 2008, 02:44 AM, said:

hillary will fix that...

Are grannies better than robots?

[m.oreilly]

hog, on Jan 14 2008, 05:39 PM, said:

Are grannies better than robots?

looks like she is also to have real terminator robots designed after her, following the success of her steel thighs in the marketplace, amongst other places...


i think hillary has it all the bases covered...

[Nvyseal]

Mo, you babbling on and on about McCarthyism again?

[m.oreilly]

Nvyseal, on Jan 14 2008, 06:30 PM, said:

Mo, you babbling on and on about McCarthyism again?

"he's having my baby..."

[bluerip]

hehehehe