This excerpt is slightly math heavy - but i figured that most of you guys could understand it. It gives the ideas that the singularity is based on a short but rigorous foundation. http://www.singularity.com/BookExcer...r_Appendix.pdf Go ahead, prove the theory wrong. I think we are going to see - right, wrong or indifferent - the end of our species. What an amazing time in which to live.
yeah bad link. But the singularity is an interesting concept. the fact that technology grows exponentially and the integration of man and machine is happening more and more means that at some point there will be computers that are faster than the brain and that one day we might use those computers to make our brains even faster! don't fear it, embrace it.
Our buddy Ray Kurzwiel has coined the term "Singularitarian" to mean someone that (like him and apparently Craiggers) believes that the machine overlords will be benevolent. I think that Sarah Conner (from fiction) or the unabomber (Ted Kaczynski) are more correct analogies of what will happen. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/56/Terma3.jpg http://www.aseopro.com/images/Borg.jpg
well the link did work, it was just appendix A to the book that showed how they (Ray) arrived at the exponential growth he is claiming. I don't think anyone that knows anything about the subject will argue that the theory is wrong. The problem is translating the knowledge of the theory into practical use. How do you take advantage of that knowledge is the more important question I think. The other thing I don't think he takes into account is that just because we have the ability to make computers that capable doesn't automatically translate into them being that powerful. It takes people putting the systems together and the hard work of working out all the kinks before they are actually that powerful.
Granted on the hard work part of your comment. But people have underestimated these things soooo much. For example: Bill Gates tried to sell DOS to IBM. The executive in charge refused to pay anything for it, famously wondering why anyone would want with a computer on their desk. An age ago, I "invented" World of Warcraft. My friend and i got a lot of the conceptual design down before we "realized" that the web wasn't fast enough to run the thing. The reason that i am happy with my limited means rather than rich is that I had never been exposed to Ray's math and am an idiot that couldn't derive it myself. As to your "practical use" comment: It has given me a lot of piece of mind. I used to worry about a whole range of issues that we can't as a species get our head around. Now, I "know" none of it matters. The singularity is the ultimate game ender.
this math would have told us back then that while computers at the time weren't powerful or small enough for it to be true in time it would be. a practical use of it's prediction and exactly what I'm looking for now (of course so is everyone else right? ;p) Now see if you and your friend had just kept designing the game and had a complete game ready for when the internet could handle it you would have been the founder of WOW or Everquest. I'm happy with a simple life also but I'm also keeping an eye out because who wouldn't jump on that bandwagon if you saw it driving by? (the lots of money because you were the first bandwagon that is) well sure, that may be true but there is still a whole lot of years between then and now. We all got bills to pay until then and the more money I can make the better chance I will have to be the first civilian to walk on the moon. The point being, if you don't ask "How can I make this idea make money for me?" then whats the purpose of it other than making you feel good? I have weed to make me feel good... I hope this didn't come off as harsh, kinda in a hurry to get to class lol.
Nah, on the contrary. I think you showed some of the good analytical thinking that I am interested in seeing and have not been able to come up with on my own. I'm retired, wrote a bunch of business DB stuff in Oracle, and have been out of the loop for a decade. My garden is more important to me than the computers now. But for a young whipper-snapper in college, your analysis should be a holy grail of sorts. What is going to happen next week that will change everything, and how can I write something or position myself so that i'm ahead of the wave? It isn't any more difficult now than it ever was. The difference is that in the old days you had to look a year or more into the future. Now you need only forecast a few months (or weeks even). Problem is, the imagination and analysis is just as difficult if you want to do it on purpose.
An app that someone should be working on: Mirror neurons are those brain cells that fire when one sees an expression. Those neurons make you feel "the same" as the subject of your interest. You feel the same as the subject providing you with empathy, and some insight into the thoughts of the subject. The ability to read faces ranges from the autistic who cannot read expressions at all to your mama to whom you could never tell a lie (and get away with it). The hardware would consist of a set of cameras that would capture images of the subjects face from all angles (every millisecond or so?). And a computer to evaluate the images for subtile changes in expression. The computer must make an evaluation of the subjects expression at least as fast as the expressions change, and the images come in. The output would be the same as Troy's advice to Picard on the enterprise. "He's hiding something." "She's lying her ass off." "He's conflicted." The application is obvious to the military, law enforcement, business negotiations, etc. Can't be done? Go to Top.
It can be done by people now, but there are problems with some aspects of it, for humans and computers. I write about the use of body language and reading cues and micro-expressions, and the problem is one of context. An expression or movement used to signal say, anger or trepidation, can look exactly like the cue for having indigestion, only a small proportion of signals are infallible. Reading cues requires you to see the subject you're reading wholisitically and judge their movements within the context of the situation you and he are in. If you don't you can easily totally misjudge them. There are people working on turning this into a computer program (some of it based on the excellent work of P Eckman), but using it to accurately tell who is lying is one of the biggest problems, again due to context, the ability of people to hide and mix signals, etc. Even those programs using direct contact with a subject are similarly flawed. It will happen, but I don't think for quite a while. MelT
Good points & info, Thanks. Some thoughts: 1. It is a tough problem, but with this ability, a computer would be way, way closer to passing the Turing test. 2. It seems to me that the only moral sentient computer must have a well developed empathy simulator. 3. Notice this subject seems non-contriversial? Maybe its where it is posted? Or is it that as "earth shattering" as the singularity is everyone but me has already processed its implications and is bored? 4. "It will happen, but I don't think for quite a while." Can you quantify that time estimate? Don't forget the exponent. ) Is there a way to search for a list of everyone working on a given problem? (besides Google)
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hKG5l_TDU8]I am the very model of a singularitarian - YouTube[/ame]