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Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
8,852 posts, read 10,454,406 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Josseppie
I am 100% convinced that the singularity will be here in 20 to 30 years.
If we're defining the Singularity as not just the rate of Cybernetic change, but as the whole rate of all Technological change to the point that it's beyond our control... then IMHO, we're already there, or at least well past the Event Horizon.
Online dating, contraception, mass porn, "sexting", etc.... haven't these alone already irrevocably changed our basic mating and reproductive habits? And how many people do we all know who are "addicted" to their smartphone, Facebook, email and online role-playing? Or how many drugs, operations and medical technologies are now keeping folks alive & walking around, who would have been dead just a few years ago.
Or how about the availability of pharmaceuticals to alter your very mind and every mood, including nootropics (memory and cognitive enhancers)? In fact even the financial markets are becoming increasingly computerized and rarified, to the point that many types of transactions are out of reach of the average investor now. And BTW, who among us can still diagnose, let alone fix, their car anymore?
We're already living in the Singularity, and this is only the beginning....
If we're defining the Singularity as not just the rate of Cybernetic change, but as the whole rate of all Technological change to the point that it's beyond our control... then IMHO, we're already there, or at least well past the Event Horizon.
Online dating, contraception, mass porn, "sexting", etc.... haven't these alone already irrevocably changed our basic mating and reproductive habits? And how many people do we all know who are "addicted" to their smartphone, Facebook, email and online role-playing? Or how many drugs, operations and medical technologies are now keeping folks alive & walking around, who would have been dead just a few years ago.
Or how about the availability of pharmaceuticals to alter your very mind and every mood, including nootropics (memory and cognitive enhancers)? In fact even the financial markets are becoming increasingly computerized and rarified, to the point that many types of transactions are out of reach of the average investor now. And BTW, who among us can still diagnose, let alone fix, their car anymore?
We're already living in the Singularity, and this is only the beginning....
I see where you are coming from, however, I think its the very early stages of it. Here is how I break it down:
Now till 2019 - I call this "last good bye".
The reason is every thing you said is right but for the most part we sill live our lives like we have for decades. If that makes sense. I mean I know we are more advanced and all but every day if is not all that different then it was in the 1960's. However this will be the last decade like that.
2020-2029 - I call this "the pre singularity:
Life in the 2020's will start to change dramatically. Not as much as when the singularity hits but enough to cause the average person to realize it and not just us geeks . life spans will be increasing, VR will begin to emerge, computers will be more intelligent then the average person etc.
2030 - The start of the singularity
This is when the fun really begins. By 2030 change will be so rapid that we will have begun what is called the singularity.
2045 - The singularity in full
By 2045 one computer will be 1 billion times more intelligent then all the humans on earth combined if they were not enhanced with them. However by then most if not all humans will be enhanced by computers and life will be changing so fast that there is no way to predict what life will be like after 2045.
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
8,852 posts, read 10,454,406 times
Reputation: 6670
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josseppie
I see where you are coming from, however, I think its the very early stages of it. Here is how I break it down:
Now till 2019 - I call this "last good bye".
The reason is every thing you said is right but for the most part we sill live our lives like we have for decades. If that makes sense. I mean I know we are more advanced and all but every day if is not all that different then it was in the 1960's. However this will be the last decade like that.
2020-2029 - I call this "the pre singularity:
Life in the 2020's will start to change dramatically. Not as much as when the singularity hits but enough to cause the average person to realize it and not just us geeks . life spans will be increasing, VR will begin to emerge, computers will be more intelligent then the average person etc.
2030 - The start of the singularity
This is when the fun really begins. By 2030 change will be so rapid that we will have begun what is called the singularity.
2045 - The singularity in full
By 2045 one computer will be 1 billion times more intelligent then all the humans on earth combined if they were not enhanced with them. However by then most if not all humans will be enhanced by computers and life will be changing so fast that there is no way to predict what life will be like after 2045.
I hope this made sense!
Got it, and sounds like maybe the only thing we really disagree on is at which point or degree of change that we wanna consider as the "baseline". Because if the rate of change continues to be a geometric one like the current rate of cybernetic improvements, then that seems like sort of a judgment call.... as every following generation since modern times is now always gonna be way more extreme than the previous ones!
And the reason I think that "baseline" (aka Singularity) is already upon us, is that we can already just look at the drastic difference between the first half of the 20th century and the second half! And obviously technology changed tremendously in both eras, but the social & cultural changes in the second half as a result of technology, have been far greater... and that geometric rate has only increased!
BTW, just a sidebar, but a lot of the current conservative movements in the world (Fundamentalism, Muslim extremists, Right Wing politics, etc.) are IMHO, simply a rebellion to this relentless rate of social (not so much technological) change... like the changes in ancient attitudes re: sex, race, gender & class roles, nationalism, religion, identity, tribal values, psychology, etc..
Got it, and sounds like maybe the only thing we really disagree on is at which point or degree of change that we wanna consider as the "baseline". Because if the rate of change continues to be a geometric one like the current rate of cybernetic improvements, then that seems like sort of a judgment call.... as every following generation since modern times is now always gonna be way more extreme than the previous ones!
And the reason I think that "baseline" (aka Singularity) is already upon us, is that we can already just look at the drastic difference between the first half of the 20th century and the second half! And obviously technology changed tremendously in both eras, but the social & cultural changes in the second half as a result of technology, have been far greater... and that geometric rate has only increased!
I think we agree way more then we disagree as well. The main reason I don't consider this the singularity yet is because for the most part my life is the same as it was now as it was when I was a kid and when the main part of the singularity comes life will be so different that there is no way we can know what it will be like.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mateo45
BTW, just a sidebar, but a lot of the current conservative movements in the world (Fundamentalism, Muslim extremists, Right Wing politics, etc.) are IMHO, simply a rebellion to this relentless rate of social (not so much technological) change... like the changes in ancient attitudes re: sex, race, gender & class roles, nationalism, religion, identity, tribal values, psychology, etc..
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
8,297 posts, read 14,161,809 times
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Has anyone mentioned the yeast graph? Yeast in a culture grows exponentially for a while, but if nothing changes, their own metabolic toxins poison the entire population. Maybe we're just not foreseeing the "toxins" in a technological singularity.
As long as we're talking Moore's Law, the axiom I'd be concerned about is GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out).
In practical terms, we'd face questions like: Is there a point where there no encryption is strong enough for more than a day, a few hours, a few minutes or seconds (or nanoseconds)? When that occurs, what constitutes a 'safe' financial system (or other system). And if a financial system cannot be trusted, doesn't that invite anarchy?
No doubt there are positives that can be achieved (no reason to think you couldn't use VR to prevent addictions to just about anything - except perhaps VR itself; or something as small as your pen could solve the fiscal cliff crisis). When computing abilities surpass the human brain we don't know how society will react. I'd fear that most humans would become redundant and that there is some significant percentage of the population that becomes essentially useless. At some point mathematics trumps everything and humanity becomes secondary (e.g. society could have 'death panels' without even knowing at through a model that ensures the useless die early). Although that too may have its advantages (politics disappears as all decisions are made by algorithms and unassailable logic).
Whenever I think about this (and I should be dead before 2045) I think it's one thing if Google has this power. It's quite another if Monsanto does - e.g. if a company with the ethics of Monsanto has it, we're either dead or zombies by 2100.
As long as we're talking Moore's Law, the axiom I'd be concerned about is GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out).
In practical terms, we'd face questions like: Is there a point where there no encryption is strong enough for more than a day, a few hours, a few minutes or seconds (or nanoseconds)? When that occurs, what constitutes a 'safe' financial system (or other system). And if a financial system cannot be trusted, doesn't that invite anarchy?
No doubt there are positives that can be achieved (no reason to think you couldn't use VR to prevent addictions to just about anything - except perhaps VR itself; or something as small as your pen could solve the fiscal cliff crisis). When computing abilities surpass the human brain we don't know how society will react. I'd fear that most humans would become redundant and that there is some significant percentage of the population that becomes essentially useless. At some point mathematics trumps everything and humanity becomes secondary (e.g. society could have 'death panels' without even knowing at through a model that ensures the useless die early). Although that too may have its advantages (politics disappears as all decisions are made by algorithms and unassailable logic).
Whenever I think about this (and I should be dead before 2045) I think it's one thing if Google has this power. It's quite another if Monsanto does - e.g. if a company with the ethics of Monsanto has it, we're either dead or zombies by 2100.
Yeah, I'm a pessimist I guess.
No one knows what will happen after the singularity so I admit I am a little nervous. That being said it will happen so the only thing we can do is get prepared the best we can. Honestly I am ready for it and am counting down the days.
Partly because many of us don't believe it will happen, or think it will at least be several centuries.
Kurzweil's argument is based on false pretenses about the speed of computing. Read Herb Sutter's article called "The free Lunch is Over" (Google it.)
Why do you think it won't happen? How can you explain More's law and how computers have advanced exponentially since the first computer was built in 1890? Do you edxpect it to stop anytime soon and if so why?
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. life spans will be increasing, VR will begin to emerge, computers will be more intelligent then the average person etc.
