I periodically get email from folks who, having read "Accelerando", assume I am some kind of fire-breathing extropian zealot who believes in the imminence of the singularity, the uploading of the libertarians, and the rapture of the nerds. I find this mildly distressing, and so I think it's time to set the record straight and say what I really think.
Charlie Stross farts in Nerd-Church
Three arguments against the singularity:
Tags: mad science, robots, the future
3 Responses:
What do you make of his arguments?
I believe part of the singularity argument isn't so much that the uploaded minds would be smarter, inasmuch as they'd run faster and thus could accomplish more in the same amount of time, and that was the source of the singularity moment.
However, even at 10x or 100x speed, the same monkey bullshit we produce now would excrete out, just that much faster.
Personally, I'm looking forward to any supra-human capable AI that we produce to go absolutely bugfuck insane at a level and a speed that we as humans are simply incapable of understanding.
Our brains are survival machines. For the most part, they do a very good job of not going insane because evolution demands it, and we still have masses of cognitive bias, fixations and gaps in our awareness. Sentient AI would suffer all that and more.
Of course, the real trick is recognizing when the AI is the sane one and humanity as a whole is crazy. I suspect the first trick an AI would have to learn is how to tactfully lie in the right circumstance.