I think at heart, you have bottom up versus top down. Bottom up is building a sentient god. This is the realm of robots, and "artificial" intelligence. I don't like calling it artificial because I think we could build a sentient being. There is only real intelligence.

The other is top down. This is the realm of retinal implants, cochlear implants, and the like. The coming artificial silicon hippocampus is a good example.

So one end feeds the other. A scientist with retinal and cochlear implants designs a robot or program. The program helps design an artificial cerebellum. And so on.

AI is a failed paradigm. Connectionism rules the roost. As for these notions of top-down versus bottom-up, they're artificial constructs that have no bearing on the consciousness singularity because this singularity will involve the advancement of our brain wetware, and will not depend on the failed AI paradigm or crude borg-like hardware implants that can never hope to adequately interface with the full complexity and intricacy of the brain's neural networks and neuropil.

Anyone familiar with AI versus connectionism knows that AI has lost the battle for real artificial intelligence since it presumes that information can be neatly localized as symbols, whereas connectionism treats computation in a distributed manner. AI has failed, and this was apparent decades ago. No-one in the know takes AI seriously anymore.

Anyone familiar with what a slice of the brain looks like under the microscope will know that the crude interfaces that punch huge gaping holes into the brain can never successfully interface with the brain's intricate design. It's like trying to embroider a fine tapestry with a sledgehammer, rope, and steel stakes. It's utter lunacy to think that prosthetic devices that interact with the brain through crude electrodes will offer any type of useful interface. Nanotechnology offers some hope in this regard, but it's still too early to tell.

Some day AI and other smart programs will be in everyday use. They are now used as aides for engineers, medical people and technicians. Soon, they will contain the combined knowledge of the human race. LD, what you are talking about is the state of AI today which is a tiny fraction of what it'll be eventually

Yea! Matter of fact, AI will allow one of us, one day design a super-bug so sophisticated that it will defeat any possible human (and/or animal) inmune resistance to it; wiping out life on earth. Or worse yet, leaving some of us alive to kill each other with sticks and rocks. Will that be before or after the Technological Singularity? And will it's designer be reciting the Koran or the Bible as he/she spreads it into the air from a high altitude?

You just don't get it, do you? Human design is flawed, period. We have been pre-designed for failure with the tools given to us. There isn't but one way out of this road to hell: The Consciousness Singularity. We need to reach down and understand the intricacy of the universe at the quantum level. That's the ticket. We need to understand the message behind the apparent chaos and ramdomness down there. For chaos is nothing but the begining of a new order. The master has awaken to his potential. Let's not keep the genie wating any longer.