Reading for Chapter
Jul. 31st, 2006 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ashnistrikeThis is sheer, unadulterated procrastination, but possibly it will help. Because I have a pile of transhumanist and anti-transhumanist books on my desk, and I want to smack the authors of all of them.
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near.
Posited: "Evolution" can be charted on a graph of state changes, starting with the emergence of life and including major technological developments. Humans are a step above non-sapient animals. Strong AI will be a step above us.
Conclusion: The AIs we create will be intensely grateful to us and devoted to our well-being.
Unstated assumption required for this chain of logic to work: Humans have been utterly devoted to the well-being of our evolutionary predecessors.
SMACK!
Michael Crichton, Prey. (Skip to the next SMACK, if you don't want the whole plot spoiled.)
Set-up: A new military camera is created, using a swarm of flying nanobots. Their movements are based on an artificial life program, in turn based on the movements, but not the actual motivations or hunting behavior, of a population of generic predators. An evolutionary programming algorithm, not entirely in control of the programmers, is used to produce swarms that don't blow apart in a strong wind.
Result: The swarms develop A) the ability to not blow apart in a strong wind, B) a method of drawing energy by eating meat (note, need not be human--they just happen to be carnivores), C) sapience (strong AI), and D) the ability to create utility fog (highly advanced nanotech, capable of eliminating poverty and reliance on non-renewable resources forever).
Conclusion: The only possible way to deal with a fellow sapient that speaks English, has already demonstrated a capacity for becoming fond of humans, and knows that you basically have a gun to its head... is to destroy it entirely, without getting records of how it developed technologies that could save millions of lives.
Bonus Assumption: A developmental psychologist, given the opportunity for first contact with a non-human intelligence, would have to be out of her mind to want to test its mental capacities.
SMACK!
Bill McKibben, Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age.
Posited: "Just because I'm writing an anti-technological screed doesn't mean I'm a luddite."
In Support: Overview of several upcoming genetic technologies, described in such a way as to get the maximum possible kneejerk negative reaction. Use of rhetorical questions about "Is this a good idea?" to which the reader is obviously supposed to answer "No," but to which my answer is, "Well, maybe."
SMACK!
Martin Rees, Our Final Hour.
I haven't picked this one up yet, but it came out in 2003. Perhaps he ought to change the title.
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near.
Posited: "Evolution" can be charted on a graph of state changes, starting with the emergence of life and including major technological developments. Humans are a step above non-sapient animals. Strong AI will be a step above us.
Conclusion: The AIs we create will be intensely grateful to us and devoted to our well-being.
Unstated assumption required for this chain of logic to work: Humans have been utterly devoted to the well-being of our evolutionary predecessors.
SMACK!
Michael Crichton, Prey. (Skip to the next SMACK, if you don't want the whole plot spoiled.)
Set-up: A new military camera is created, using a swarm of flying nanobots. Their movements are based on an artificial life program, in turn based on the movements, but not the actual motivations or hunting behavior, of a population of generic predators. An evolutionary programming algorithm, not entirely in control of the programmers, is used to produce swarms that don't blow apart in a strong wind.
Result: The swarms develop A) the ability to not blow apart in a strong wind, B) a method of drawing energy by eating meat (note, need not be human--they just happen to be carnivores), C) sapience (strong AI), and D) the ability to create utility fog (highly advanced nanotech, capable of eliminating poverty and reliance on non-renewable resources forever).
Conclusion: The only possible way to deal with a fellow sapient that speaks English, has already demonstrated a capacity for becoming fond of humans, and knows that you basically have a gun to its head... is to destroy it entirely, without getting records of how it developed technologies that could save millions of lives.
Bonus Assumption: A developmental psychologist, given the opportunity for first contact with a non-human intelligence, would have to be out of her mind to want to test its mental capacities.
SMACK!
Bill McKibben, Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age.
Posited: "Just because I'm writing an anti-technological screed doesn't mean I'm a luddite."
In Support: Overview of several upcoming genetic technologies, described in such a way as to get the maximum possible kneejerk negative reaction. Use of rhetorical questions about "Is this a good idea?" to which the reader is obviously supposed to answer "No," but to which my answer is, "Well, maybe."
SMACK!
Martin Rees, Our Final Hour.
I haven't picked this one up yet, but it came out in 2003. Perhaps he ought to change the title.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 06:45 am (UTC)I think that "it sounded even better when I was on hallucinagens" should be a red flag for anyone.