speaking at NASA this week among a prescient posse of global executives
Canon 7D video frame by Matt Rutherford from SU (update: the video finally went online)
14 responses to “Singularity University”
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Yes, sawyerlaw, SU has a full media team headed by Matt Rutherford, and they shoot full HD video, which can be used to generate impressive full frame stills. The videos are released on YouTube unders CC-BY, and are great: youtube.com/singularityu
(disclosure: I am an Advisor to SU)
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The one EDGE in 2000? It’s been a decade since I read that, but will reskim this weekend. Ray posted a reply too. I vaguely recall thinking Jaron’s critique was misdirected.
My main critique of Kurzweil’s cluster of arguments is that uploading is not so easy. The sensory interfaces are remarkably plastic, and phenomenon such as phantom limb pain and lucid hallucinations would likely ensue in any cut and paste across substrates (unless we are envisioning a full body robo-simulator).
When we evolve a complex system, it is a black box defined by its interfaces. We cannot easily apply our design intuition to improve upon its inner workings. We can’t even partition its subsystems without a serious effort at reverse engineering. And until we can understand the interfaces between partitions, we can’t hope to transfer a subsystem from one evolved complex system to another (unless they have co-evolved).
If we artificially evolve a smart AI, it will be an alien intelligence defined by its sensory interfaces, and understanding its inner workings may require as much effort as we are now expending to explain the human brain. Assuming that computer code can evolve much faster than biological reproduction rates, it is unlikely that we would take the time to reverse engineer these intermediate points given that there is so little that we could do with the knowledge. We would let the process of improvement continue.
Of course, if uploading becomes possible, we will likely upload a primate before a human (given FDA regulation, and the need to do animal trials…), and that could get pretty interesting (Templeton’s blog). Hopefully hyperintelligence will originate not from aggressive chimps but from bonobos – a hedonistic bisexual sisterhood…
obskura: that’s what I thought at first too. I am not familiar with the 70D I found when googling. Will change.
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Earlier this year he published a book-length rant again some of the prevailing attitudes in the IT world. The book is called ‘You are Not a Gadget’. The first part of the book attacks singularity theory, which he claims is something of a religion in Silicon Valley.
The objections you mention are similar in some ways to his analysis, which I think are related to issues of ’embodiment’, that algorithms cannot be considered in isolation, but the hardware which they are embedded in, the interfaces with the physical world must also be considered.
Btw, I can recommend the book, it is well-written and cogently argued.
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In these pics you look a bit like Neil Armstrong, a compliment I knew you’d appreciate more than most!
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