i've never heard of this before, and i don't think i ever would have thought of this on my own. i remember reading ray kurzweil going on about the ever-accelerating pace of technology but i dont remember any mention of the singularity.
Well i read all this stuff and searched and found some transhumanist and extropian stuff - whew! Before i make any real serious comments or questions about this, i'm gonna have to let it percolate in the back of my mind and not think about it (consciously) for a while. (i dont know what this technique is called or how it works but it does seem to work well for a lot of things)

But before i do, i'd like to throw out a couple of initial thoughts into the mosh-pit of general consideration:

• Maybe this is lame/obvious, but superintelligent machines and uploaded people make me think of the Matrix.
• Singularity schmingularity. You can't predict the future. Well Duh!
• For every problem that's solved with tech, new problems appear. Better locks and safes just spawned more sophisticated thieves. We can communicate more easily than ever before with the internet but with this benefit also comes spam, viruses, trojans, ect. From a darwinist view, every new survival mechanism also creates new ways to kill you. Technology is no different in that regard, because people can always find a way to misuse it, or defeat it, and there's always Murphy's law. Knives are great technology but you can slip and cut yourself (or get stabbed) and the space shuttle is great but sometimes they blow up. Can these fundemental problems ever really be solved? As tech complexity and sophistication accelerates and a exponential rate, wont problems and fuck-ups keep pace?
• AI might not happen like that. I'm sure we can build better and better computers with better and better operating systems, but i'm kinda sceptical about superintelligent machines getting built in the first place. Maybe intelligence /consciousness can be simulated, but a simulation running on a faster clock is still just a simulation, as was pointed out (by someone) that a faster-thinking dog is still just a fast-thinking dog.
• McWorld and third world - Of course we can't imagine the unimaginable, but because we know that the future of humanity will be created by humans, i think we can get a few good clues by looking at the history of humanity. If we look at a timeline of tech and the way it's been used and the ecconomic and social results, it's pretty easy to see that technology has always been for the rich people. So long as there's this split between the haves and the have-nots, there won't be any kind of unimaginably different world that we can't possibly understand from our perspective- it'll still be a world of the haves and the have-nots. Look at the great leaps and bounds we've made in agriculture- we can produce more food than ever before, but every time there's an increase in food supply, theres an increase in population. We can feed the world with existing tech, but there are still starving children. Even in the richest countries like U.S. and Canada there are children going to bed hungry. So long as there are powerful people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, no new technology, however weird and wild, will ever put an end to the babylon system.

NEway, those are just the first things that sprang to mind. Anybody else? thoughts, comments? Lay it on me.

What happened to the message I posted here yesterday?

Mike Deering
www.SingularityActionGroup.com

Mike,
There were some problems teh past few days due to Shawn switching servers to accomidate our growth here. He has it all fixed up now, bur unfortunately some posts got lost in the mix!

Please post here often, things are working well now!

Bye, Dara

hi Mike,

it's nice to see you here.  Dara has it right, about switching servers and all (thank you Dara).  About 2 weeks ago, Mind-Brain.com went offline for a few hours because it exceeded the bandwidth limit of 10 GB, and so I subsequently switched to a server with unlimited bandwidth, which means that this site will stay online no matter how many people visit.

It's unfortunate about the missing posts, and I do apologize for that.  I'm somewhat concerned that I'll mess  up more of the recent posts on the forum now if I tried to incorporate  the missing ones, and so I'm hesitant about taking this action.  If there are posts that you really need, though, please tell me and I'll email them to you.

Hope to hear from you again.

take care,
Shawn

Mike, what did you say?

But hey, i've since done enough reading to know that i know nothing about AI and nanobots and boiengineering and all these different advancing fields.
So it could well be that we'll soon build things out of atoms and build artificial people and preform all different kinds of miracles...
i just don't have any faith in techtopia.
Am i the only one here that doesn't?
Come on people, testify!

I was worried that I had offended Shawn.  I'm glad to hear that it was just a glitch.

Basically your first post made five points/questions:

1.  Is the Singularity like The Matrix?
2.  You can't predict the future.
3.  Aren't there RISKS associated with the Singularity?
4.  What if A.I. is just simulation of intelligence?
5.  What about the haves/have-nots problem?

You put a lot of content into your messages.  Which means a complete response requires a lot of content also.

#1.  IS THE SINGULARITY LIKE THE MATRIX?  The Matrix is one of my favorite movies.  They showed some of the power of fully mature virtual reality technology.  I see no practical problems to VR of this level being implemented after the Singularity.  Although this particular scenario I find highly unlikely.  The idea of using humans as a power source was ludicrous.  And the political power balance between the guests and the hosts unrealistic.  But it is still one of my favorite movies.

#2.  YOU CAN'T PREDICT THE FUTURE.  True.  You can't predict the future in any detail.  But the trends are remarkably consistent.  The experts have some ideas of what would be possible with the full maturity of the Singularity technologies, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence.  Why should they be the only ones to be aware of these things.  Let's find out what they know.  Let's think about what it would mean to us.  Let's decide to work toward the kind of Singularity we want.  Alan Kay quote: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

#3.  AREN'T THERE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE SINGULARITY?  Yes there certainly are!  And we need to be aware of the RISKS as well as the BENEFITS.  While we are deciding what kind of Singularity we want, we need to make preparations to prevent the kind of Singularity we don't want.  

#4.  WHAT IF AI IS JUST A SIMULATION OF INTELLIGENCE?  I am not qualified to answer this question, but Alan Turing is (was).  Alan Turing (famous mathematician) was the first person to advance the computational theory of mind.  Basically he gave mathematical arguments showing that what we are doing in our heads is computation that can be done as well (probably better) by a digital computer.  If we are conscious then they will be too.  I predict that someday soon computers will be debating whether we (biologicals) are actually conscious.

#5.  WHAT ABOUT THE HAVES/HAVE-NOTS PROBLEM?  Yes, this is a big problem, and my primary concern.  If the masses of poor, disenfranchised, or politically oppressed peoples of the world are not assured that they will benefit from the Singularity it will turn out badly.  No one can be left behind.  The mission of the Singularity Action Group is to prepare for the sociological impact of the Singularity.

You can find out more about the BENEFITS and RISKS at the website  www.SingularityActionGroup.com

Mike Deering.