The future is going to be amazing

Astronomer68...

Yes, I hold a general belief in the basic concept of the 'singularity', although how it will work out in detail are beyond what any human can probably predict right now. Maybe it is a matter of belief, but I believe the evidence is strong, stronger than any other theory I have seen.

Would not such a belief then imply that nature has created a perfect mechanism--humans? I find it difficult to believe that, in my view, imperfect humans can create anything that is, or is capable of, perfection.

Humans are not creating anything. Think for a second. Humans were created by nature, it is evolution. All life on earth was created through the general laws of nature. For whatever reason, plasma formed to atoms, which formed into molecules which formed into more complex molecules, which formed into amino acids, DNA, proteins, etc etc. Things were set up like this, and that is just the nature of things, period. Humans have no say in evolution, they are a result of it, they are a part of it, and it is a force of nature. If they try to resist the process, they will then be tossed along the roadside, and something else will move ahead. When the singularity comes, it will be through no guidance of 'imperfect humans'. It will be because that is the way of nature.... Do you agree? It is the inevitable path.

Question. When humans evolved from apes... Did the apes create the humans?

I believe our approach towards perfection will be limited by the time it takes for successive generations to reach the point where thay can contribute to further improvements.

Yes, the slow pace of evolution in the human form is why this biological form is probably not the way to the singularity. There will be a further massive evolution, and unfortunately, I suspect it will not be through humans as we know them. Have you seen the initiative by IBM to model the human brain in silicon? Here is one link, hopefully it works, or you can Google.

www.dancewithshadows.com...

What happens when we have a brain simulated? What happens when we have a brain simulated, but then we allow it to run faster and faster, for example living a lifetime in 1 year, or 1 day, or 1 hour? What happens if it never dies, and lives 1000 lifetimes in a second? Why am I placing these arbitrary limits on how it can perform? What happens when it is performing like this, and put to the task of improving itself ever more? It will increase to the maximum, and that will be it. What kinds of problems will it have been able to solve along the way then?

Maybe all of them?

Not maybe, definitely.

That is how you need to think with this model...

TheMesh

THEY'RE MADE OUT OF MEAT
by Terry Bisson

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So ... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

Originally posted by TheMesh
Astronomer68...

When the singularity comes, it will be through no guidance of 'imperfect humans'. It will be because that is the way of nature.... Do you agree? It is the inevitable path.

Question. When humans evolved from apes... Did the apes create the humans?

Yes, in a sense the apes created the humans.

No, I don't agree it is the inevitable path. I do agree we will travel along that road, but not that we will reach that result.

I have seen the reports, from a variety of sources, concerning research into various approaches to true A.I. (including simulations of the human brain).

Assuming for the moment that any one of those approaches is accurate and further assuming that any of them are successful in simulating the human brain accurately, then it follows that what would be achieved is a copy of the human brain in silicone (or whatever else is used by then). It does not follow that such a device/brain would ever be capable of going beyond what a human brain is capable of--only that it could get there faster. However, that artificial brain's thought processes would still be limited by the speed of light and the furtherest distance from one brain component to the most remote one. Therefore, that device could never, ever, live a normal human lifetime in a milisecond--the laws of physics simply would not permit that. As far as putting it to the task of improving itself goes, that would seem to be one of the logical tasks to assign it; however, given that it is a copy of a human brain, it would not be capable of having thoughts that a human brain could not--again, it could only reach it's conclusions faster. No, I'm afraid that any A.I. humans build will of necessity have to adopt a design fundamentally different from the human brain before it will ever be able to surpass the human brain.

Perhaps one day we can design such a device, but no research approach that I've been privy to is even attempting such a thing. The research into a so called "Quantum Computer" would seem to offer the most promising avenue towards creating a superfast device of some sort. Assuming we can someday build a Quantum Computer, the next question becomes, can we turn it into an A.I. device? If the answer to that question is yes, then perhaps we can build an artificial thinking machine capable of surpassing the human mind and approaching your concept of the singularity, but we are talking many, many years down the road.


[edit on 19-7-2005 by Astronomer68]

I dont believe in any of that singularity garbage...but the story was kinda funny Astronomer68.

Murcielago... "garbage" is a very persuasive argument. I can hardly refute that.

Maybe I will ask for help.

MIT graduate with 11 honorary PhDs, and the Lemelson Prize from MIT... Might take a bit to get through the awards section... Take your time.

www.kurzweiltech.com...

Might also want to ask Bill Joy co-founder of Sun Microsystems

www.stanford.edu...

Marvin Minsky, co-founder of AI lab at MIT

en.wikipedia.org...

Or maybe check out the names on this list.

en.wikipedia.org...

Well, not meaning to be too blunt, but if you want to dispute something, a logical reason or persuasive argument is more persuasive than "that is garbage".

Astronomer...

Yes, in a sense the apes created the humans.

I have no understanding of that. If you mean they fought each other to the death, possibly, or mated to select the best traits in their mate, or starved each other to create a better ape, maybe I can see, but that was as a result of the constraints of their environment, and the traits injected to their genome from eons of selection. The apes did not create themselves, or humans. Anyway, point is not the most important point really. I think we agree that evolution has been happening, and it continues now.

However, that artificial brain's thought processes would still be limited by the speed of light and the furtherest distance from one brain component to the most remote one.

I agree on the physical limits, if that is indeed one of the physical limits. But, the length of the firing of a neuron is a few milliseconds, the time it takes a signal to travel from the retina to the visual cortex is about 50 ms.... How does this compare to the speed of light? It is in the range of 3 * 10^8 m/s. To get a signal from the eye to the visual cortex at EM speed is less than a nanosecond which is faster by about 50 million times... Do you not think that the action of a neuron cannot be simulated at a massively higher rate than 10 ms? But I agree with you, there is little reason to believe that a simulation of a human brain is the way to massive intelligence, I was only using it as an example as to the computing powers we have at our disposal. But, it was also not very persuasive on your part to claim that it is bunk. There are very many people working in this direction. And IBM is, well, they are IBM, a leader in supercomputing, a massive presence in the field. They are no slouches.

So, living one simulated life in 1 second is a factor of 2 billion times faster. General scale is similar, not that it really means much. What is important is what the simulation does in that time. Humans sit on their tail, watch Friends on TV, eat, sleep, get drunk. Waste a good portion of their time. Very few of our resources are being used to improve the overall intelligence of the planet.

We are smarter than a cat by several orders of magnitude, at one time a cat's intelligence was the best the planet had to offer, but you cannot accept something getting smarter than us by such a magnitude, due to the limitations of physics. Well if that is the limit, we will shortly be there. That is what the singularity is, the limit. Anyway, history so far does not bear it out, and we have about a billion years to use as a guide. And there are curves that show the steady rate of increase. It has not stopped yet, and it is exponential.

however, given that it is a copy of a human brain, it would not be capable of having thoughts that a human brain could not--again, it could only reach it's conclusions faster

It does not follow that such a device/brain would ever be capable of going beyond what a human brain is capable of--only that it could get there faster.

Well, you are catching my drift, but still not quite there, and I ask this then. If it comes to the thoughts a human brain does, but at a faster speed, then does not that entail it solves the exact same problems that a human brain can, but at a faster speed? What has historically limited our ability to solve problems? The time it takes for us to research the field through years of schooling, then research the historical work, collect up the data, collaborate with our peers, try new hypothesis... It is highly time intensive.

Try it in a computer. Put all research from a the field into the database. Formulate new hypothesis, inject the raw data, let it analyze it at about a million times faster than a human can, let it figure out faster ways to collect the data, inject all of the data that is known to exist. Analyze that. Let it begin to form the hypothesis. Hypothesize every possible theory, and try to prove them. Let it collect the data. Let it run one version of the AI against another to see which is best, i.e. artificial selection of the AIs. Formulate what entails an intelligent machine, measure one machine against the other, and see which is the best. Repeat. Let it try different genome sequences, simulate those, if there are superior results, splice those genomes to humans.... Do this all very fast. Let it decide which architecture results in the smartest intelligence, biological, or silicon, or a combination. May the best man win. It will occur very rapidly.

Simple description, but I hope it is obvious. I think I agree with you, that the time frame is somewhat murky. I did not say 2012, that was the previous poster, but we have graphs that give us rough estimates, and those are guidelines. And it is not very far away.

So, anyway, that is the key, we are increasing computing power at some rate at this time, as soon as the computers start helping, the speed begins to exponentially increase. Then the limit will be shortly found.

Anyway, enough of this, I've been going on and on, and I've taken way over any reasonable space on the board for this discussion. Pardon me, enough of this.

Nice conversation though.

Take care.

TheMesh

This reminds me of a previous thread i theorised. It was called PROMETHEUS

[edit on 19-7-2005 by Shadow88]

Originally posted by Dulcimer
id rather walk than be in a hydrogen car that is unsafe.

in my opinion, id rather live a few hundred years ago minus the technology, than a few years from now in an abundance.

erm... except for some medical advances. thats good stuff.

LOL, go a month without toilet paper and I think you might change your mind.

I think the future is what we make of it. There are some exciting and some bad things happening at the moment.

Prophesies and such things may or may not be coming to pass. Either way, we need not let life kick us around like a leaf in the wind. And we need not bow down to any suppressive force, nor continue to destroy the planet we live on with pollution and bad practices.

Life can be great, all we need to do is make it so.

Troy

``

i'd like to add this article from the 'Independent News'

"The Resurrection Men"

* about going forward with suspended animation, on human patients

** about having in just 10 years, trauma pod drones,
which would respond to soldiers attached to sensors who got 'hit' and the flying pods would
could be able to treat the wounded on site with remote controlled
'hands' and such...
..read the article for what seems a brighter future
thru our technology applications based on our respect & value of life....

Originally posted by Dulcimer
id rather walk than be in a hydrogen car that is unsafe.

in my opinion, id rather live a few hundred years ago minus the technology, than a few years from now in an abundance.

erm... except for some medical advances. thats good stuff.

people lived on farms and grew their own food.

wow i still do that.

You can start by cancelling your phone service, internet service, gettingr rid of any vehicules you might have, throwing your pc ou, throwing your glasses away (if you wear glasses), throwing out any medication you might have purchased within the last 300 years, and start using lead bowls and lead utensils to eat with

Originally posted by mrwupy
I SOOOO plan on reincarnating.

Wupy

Resurrection would be better, wouldn't it? Without having to 'taste death?'

Of course, either way it will be a better world for all of us 100 years down the road. Maybe even 50!

I can't wait.

"remember though with the comming of this great technology and breakthroughs in science, there will also come amazingly destructive weopons"

This maybe true but if every nation assuming individual sovereingty still exists that far off had one. I am willing to take a guess to say that no leader would use it. If everyone had the same power then they would equally be afraid to use it knowing the consequences of such an action. This is the reason why the cold ware never ended the world and why it will exist many years into the future.

I say that if you decided to extend your life, you should be restricted from having children for that extension period, to make sure you cannot overpopulate the world.

If you wanted to live to 1000 years old, then you cannot have children for at least 930 of those years. We can already "tie the tubes" effectively, which IS a reversible operation.

I would do that. Live an extended life, and not have children.

What an excellent thread! Even on ATS, I've seen very few that can boast such a high ratio of intelligent, informed debate to superstitious, opinionated tomfoolery. Just for having done that, I...

...have voted Shadow88 for the Way Above Top Secret award.

I read about Kurzweil's 'singularity' idea some time ago. The basic premise isn't at all hard to swallow, though I wonder whether the suggested time-frame isn't a bit too optimistic. The cutting edge of progress may be sharp, but the blade as a whole is heavy and unwieldy: it drags at the air and is wont to turn in the hand. Having lived most of my life in poorer parts of the world, I know that the mass of humanity is far from ready to make it through any kind of technological needle's eye and won't be for a long time yet. Taken by and large, human beings are ignorant, savage and live lives of desperate contingency -- all this largely through no fault of their own, of course.

The 'singularity' aside, this is a thread full of great ideas, such as this one:

Originally posted by TheMesh
Humans have no say in evolution, they are a result of it, they are a part of it, and it is a force of nature. If they try to resist the process, they will then be tossed along the roadside, and something else will move ahead. When the singularity comes, it will be through no guidance of 'imperfect humans'. It will be because that is the way of nature...

Yes, absolutely. A generation or two ago, popular wisdom had it that human evolution had ceased: the comforts of civilization were deemed to have made it possible for the weak to survive and reproduce just as efficiently as the strong. This, of course, was nonsense: technology had only replaced some selective pressures with others, doubtless changing the direction of evolution of our species but certainly not halting it. In fact, the increasing pace of change in our environment forces the pace of evolution. We certainly don't control our evolution; it is a natural process, beyond human control. If the 'singularity' comes (I don't say 'when'), it will seem to us like an accident.

For many, alas, it will be a fatal accident. I don't agree with the poster who suggested we 'think pantheism'. That particular singularity is, I suspect, still a few millennia off. For the moment, we futureheads will have to be content with a technological and cultural quantum event. Evolving into God seems rather more of a long-term project.

Originally posted by Astronomer68
At some point in the far future humans may be regarded as pets.

I put it to you that we are already so regarded (though quite by whom I could not say). Would we even know if we were?

Originally posted by painkiller
I want my hoverboard..... NOW!

Get in line, lad. I've been waiting a lot longer than you have... unless you're over forty.

Originally posted by johnsky
I say that if you decided to extend your life, you should be restricted from having children for that extension period, to make sure you cannot overpopulate the world.

If you wanted to live to 1000 years old, then you cannot have children for at least 930 of those years. We can already "tie the tubes" effectively, which IS a reversible operation.

I would do that. Live an extended life, and not have children.

Overpopulation won't be a problem. Between advancing agricultural technology (more food per acre), global warming (more food per year), and increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere (healthier plants), we should be able to sustain our expanding population without any tedious and annoying government regulations, at least until we can expand onto other planets.