As I have pointed out elsewhere, those of the transhumanist cult seem unable to break away from the tired old SF paradigm of “robot revolutions”, while overlooking the emergence of a new life-form that is occurring right under our noses.
Very real evidence indicates the rather imminent implementation of the next, (non-biological) phase of the on-going evolutionary “life” process from what we at present call the Internet.
It can already be observed as a a work-in-progress. And effectively evolving by a process of self-assembly.
You may have noticed that we are increasingly, in a sense, “enslaved” by our PCs, mobile phones, their apps and many other trappings of the net. We are already largely dependent upon it for our commerce and industry and there is no turning back. What we perceive as a tool is well on its way to becoming an agent.
Consider this:
There are at present an estimated 2 Billion internet users.
There are an estimated 13 Billion neurons in the human brain.
On this basis for approximation the internet is even now only one order of magnitude below the human brain and its growth is exponential.
That is a simplification, of course. For example:
Not all users have their own computer. So perhaps we could reduce that, say, tenfold.
The number of switching units, transistors, if you wish, contained by all the computers connecting to the internet and which are more analogous to individual neurons is many orders of magnitude greater than 2 Billion.
Then again, this is compensated for to some extent by the fact that neurons do not appear to be binary switching devices but can adopt multiple states.
Without even crunching the numbers, we see that we must take seriously the possibility that even the present internet may well be comparable to a human brain in processing power. And, of course, the degree of interconnection and cross-linking of networks within networks is also growing rapidly.
The culmination of this exponential growth corresponds to the event that transhumanists inappropriately call “The Singularity” but is more properly regarded as a phase transition of the “life” process.
The broad evolutionary model that supports this contention is outlined very informally in “The Goldilocks Effect: What Has Serendipity Ever Done For Us?” , a free download in e-book formats from the “Unusual Perspectives” website
That Cracked video was actually noteworthy for giving a not too awful very quick primer to people about AI dangers at the beginning of the video. I’m continually impressed by the fact that one of the best popularizers of rational thinking on the internet is a humor site that frequently resorts to poop jokes.
As I have pointed out elsewhere, those of the transhumanist cult seem unable to break away from the tired old SF paradigm of “robot revolutions”, while overlooking the emergence of a new life-form that is occurring right under our noses. Very real evidence indicates the rather imminent implementation of the next, (non-biological) phase of the on-going evolutionary “life” process from what we at present call the Internet.
It can already be observed as a a work-in-progress. And effectively evolving by a process of self-assembly. You may have noticed that we are increasingly, in a sense, “enslaved” by our PCs, mobile phones, their apps and many other trappings of the net. We are already largely dependent upon it for our commerce and industry and there is no turning back. What we perceive as a tool is well on its way to becoming an agent.
Consider this:
There are at present an estimated 2 Billion internet users. There are an estimated 13 Billion neurons in the human brain. On this basis for approximation the internet is even now only one order of magnitude below the human brain and its growth is exponential.
That is a simplification, of course. For example: Not all users have their own computer. So perhaps we could reduce that, say, tenfold. The number of switching units, transistors, if you wish, contained by all the computers connecting to the internet and which are more analogous to individual neurons is many orders of magnitude greater than 2 Billion. Then again, this is compensated for to some extent by the fact that neurons do not appear to be binary switching devices but can adopt multiple states.
Without even crunching the numbers, we see that we must take seriously the possibility that even the present internet may well be comparable to a human brain in processing power. And, of course, the degree of interconnection and cross-linking of networks within networks is also growing rapidly.
The culmination of this exponential growth corresponds to the event that transhumanists inappropriately call “The Singularity” but is more properly regarded as a phase transition of the “life” process.
The broad evolutionary model that supports this contention is outlined very informally in “The Goldilocks Effect: What Has Serendipity Ever Done For Us?” , a free download in e-book formats from the “Unusual Perspectives” website
This argument is explored in more detail in this video.
That Cracked video was actually noteworthy for giving a not too awful very quick primer to people about AI dangers at the beginning of the video. I’m continually impressed by the fact that one of the best popularizers of rational thinking on the internet is a humor site that frequently resorts to poop jokes.
“resorts”?
This has already been posted once.