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I've always said that IMHO Jossepie is generous with his time line, but everything he posts is there for the finding if you look hard enough. He's reading the writing on the wall in other words. I've learned a lot reading his posts and always look forward to more.
I think many are simply skeptical about the years. Although, I'm no expert in computer science, biology is more my realm and with their experiments they take years to reach the public and they require multiple studies. They also have to study the effects of drugs or new surgical procedures for years to see if there are any side effects in the long-term.
I'm assuming it's the same with tech? I mean we've had self driving cars for decades and it's still not out for the general public (they're still in testing). We've had cybernetic limbs for about a decade being tested on soldiers who lost limbs in war and still hasn't reached the market.
There is, however, a critical difference between the past few decades, and the next two decades. An exponential curve seems almost linear and practically flat until you get into the "knee" of the curve. We are only part-way into the knee of the curve, but this decade (or the next, at the latest) we will be getting into the nearly vertical portion of the graph. That's a whole different ball game.
There is, however, a critical difference between the past few decades, and the next two decades. An exponential curve seems almost linear and practically flat until you get into the "knee" of the curve. We are only part-way into the knee of the curve, but this decade (or the next, at the latest) we will be getting into the nearly vertical portion of the graph. That's a whole different ball game.
This is true.
I am 43 and graduated from high school in 1991. The changes we have seen since then makes my life today a science fiction movie when I was a senior in high school. Yet this is nothing compared to the advances we will see in the next 13 years. Why I argue that when we hit life 3.0 or the nanotech revolution sometime in the mid to late 2020's we will actually start the technological singularity.
This saying describes the next 13 years in a fun way.
This is a small but important step to the technological singularity.
Mimicking the brain, in silicon, New computer chip models how neurons communicate with each other at synapses.
For decades, scientists have dreamed of building computer systems that could replicate the human brain’s talent for learning new tasks.
MIT researchers have now taken a major step toward that goal by designing a computer chip that mimics how the brain’s neurons adapt in response to new information. This phenomenon, known as plasticity, is believed to underlie many brain functions, including learning and memory.
My own theory, as half baked as it may seem, is that the singularity occurred eons ago. The age of human beings is history. You can speculate that our so called existence is nothing more that a highly evolved computer generated ancestor archive built and maintained by hybrids that came after us for the sake of nostalgia.
My own theory, as half baked as it may seem, is that the singularity occurred eons ago. The age of human beings is history. You can speculate that our so called existence is nothing more that a highly evolved computer generated ancestor archive built and maintained by hybrids that came after us for the sake of nostalgia.
So you think we are just visiting here that this is all a simulation? Which how I play VR I could see how we could simulate something like this universe if the computer was big enough so there is no way to know......
My own theory, as half baked as it may seem, is that the singularity occurred eons ago. The age of human beings is history. You can speculate that our so called existence is nothing more that a highly evolved computer generated ancestor archive built and maintained by hybrids that came after us for the sake of nostalgia.
As far fetched as your theory sounds, it actually is a legitimate theory to well known physicists.
You can read of the reasonings here or even the opposing views.
And there are other reasons to think we might be virtual. For instance, the more we learn about the universe, the more it appears to be based on mathematical laws. Perhaps that is not a given, but a function of the nature of the universe we are living in. “If I were a character in a computer game, I would also discover eventually that the rules seemed completely rigid and mathematical,†said Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “That just reflects the computer code in which it was written.â€
Furthermore, ideas from information theory keep showing up in physics. “In my research I found this very strange thing,†said James Gates, a theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland. “I was driven to error-correcting codes—they’re what make browsers work. So why were they in the equations I was studying about quarks and electrons and supersymmetry? This brought me to the stark realization that I could no longer say people like Max are crazy.â€
For what it is worth, I will ask: Can anyone here offer any thoughtful arguments or evidence for believing that something more or less like Kurzweil's notion of the singularity won't happen? Or why it won't happen within, say 30 years?
Roger Penrose demolished hard AI many yrs ago.
Quantum computing might stand a better chance but even then, they can't design something that isn't understood in the first place. Consciousness is the most intractable mystery in the universe.
Heres the problem for hard AI, consciousness does not arise from mere computation, no matter how fast or powerful, reason is axioms and algorythms are always incomplete in computation, but in human intelligence we have something extra that can get around incompleteness. Whilst we use computation in the brain there is something else going on.
This is all well proven mathematical theorem, Godels incompleteness.
Single cell paracetium find food, mate, escape from a maze..then escape faster the second time.
But they don't have a single neuron.
Colonies of anemones repell invaders in unison but they don't have a brain between them.
But do they have a mind?
Humans who undergo hemispherectomie , separating the brain halves to treat epilepsy have 2 distinct brains with no direct cross link after its cut, but they display unified persona's. They function like ordinary people, work, drive, talk etc. So whats going on?
The brain is more complex than thought, its suspected by many that mind cannot arise from vast complexes of neuron switches. Something is occurring at the quantum level , try that with a silicon chip.
When Penrose started postulating about quantum mind he was ridiculed because as all "physicists" know the brain cannot support quantum superposition, its too warm and wet for quantum physics to be occurring inside the skull.
Surprise surprise, today quantum biology is the fastest growing segment in science, not only does it occur but life cannot occur if it doesn't happen.!
Its proven that photosynthesis uses QM, as do birds use QM for navigation, as do dogs for their sense of smell, as does DNA, Quantum Mechanics is everywhere.
Increasing the speed and complexity of computing will not cut it, it will always be incomplete.
So it leaves the door open for quantum computing but how do you design something that is an enigma.
If consciousness was easy to understand, we would be too simple to understand the explanation.
And how do you emulate what cannot be fundamentally grasped.
Its like this, suppose we fast fwd 20 yrs and quantum computing is fully operational, you can simulate intelligence but the machine still isn't conscious and we still don't have an answer to "what is consciousness".
The biggest questions that science fails to answer are the simplest ones that a child can ask, and they do.
Roger Penrose demolished hard AI many yrs ago. [...]
Its like this, suppose we fast fwd 20 yrs and quantum computing is fully operational, you can simulate intelligence but the machine still isn't conscious and we still don't have an answer to "what is consciousness".
I agree with Penrose about the non-computable nature of subjective/qualitative experience, but I don't think that the singularity depends on computers being actually conscious. Super-fast, powerful computers should be sufficient - although genuinely conscious computers would certainly make things interesting. In any case, I don't yet see the mystery of consciousness as a necessary roadblock to the singularity. Now if you are suggesting that computers won't even be able to simulate human intelligence, then that would be a roadblock, but I do not yet see any reason to think we will smack into that particular roadblock.
Great post Jonesg, but I also don't think of the singularity as being when AI reaches consciousness. That's prob'ly the problem with 'the singularity', it means different things to different people.
But I do agree with you that no matter how fast a calculator becomes it'll always be a calculator. Where would the leap to self awareness come from?
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