[note, I'm cc'ing kurzweilAI.net because it's rude to talk about someone
behind their back, at least I'm not being doubly-rude here].
I just finished reading the Big Weenie's new book. I was fairly happy
with the first 280 pages of the thing. It seemed like he was changing
his spiel to advocating a cloud based meta-cortex; very similar to what
I've been advocating recently, actually, minus the cloud part... (I
think that the idea of people putting ALL their information on the cloud
was enough to give certain key google execs the biggest boner of their
lives, hence he was hired.)
I think he just amused himself finding several dozen random quotations
for each chapter and subsection and let his ghost-writer do the rest. Or
that's how it felt.
He spent most of his ink talking about himself. That said, I still agree
with most of his AI ideas, fuzzy and pop-sci as they were. Writers of
pop-sci books should burn in hell for keeping people away from the real
inf0z. U guys suck.
On pages 281 and 282 he decided to burn all the credibility he had built
up through the rest of the book. Basically, what he said was outrageous
enough that I'd propose burning him at the stake.
LOOK, ASSHOLE, YOUR LAW OF ACCELERATING RETURNS IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS
MY EXISTENCE AS A HUMANOID LIFEFORM. YOU CAN HAVE YOUR COMPUTRONIUM. YOU
CAN UPLOAD INTO YOUR COMPUTRONIUM. YOU CAN CONVERT THE ODD MOON HERE, A
GAS GIANT THERE, A NEBULA OR TWO, EVEN A BLACK HOLE IF YOU CAN FIND A
WAY TO EXPLOIT ONE. KNOCK YOURSELF OUT!!! BUT STOP THERE. LEAVE THE
TERRESTRIAL PLANETS TO THE PEOPLE, FLUFFY BUNNIES, AND FURRY LITTLE
MEOW-MONSTERS WHO NEED THEM!!!
At no point in my life have I ever granted him license to speak about my
destiny. =|
He doesn't explicitly propose an uploading paradigm, you kinda have to
piece it together from paragraphs scattered throughout the book. While I
remain anti-uploading, the outlines he drew were slightly less
unappealing than the standard picture. His proposal for emulation was
based on a medium-high level model of the brain, while still flawed,
actually could surpass the baseline's capabilities, as an AI. The
traditional proposal of low-level simulation would always be much worse.
The bulk of his uploading argument was on pages 240-247, though he
didn't present it as an uploading proposal. I kinda passed over it
because he didn't say anything outrageous in it. My objections to this
thought experiment are much more subtle. My objection is that at some
point during the replacement procedure a paradox will occur where you
are at the point of replacing the exact same part of the brain that
would normally perceive some kind of benefit from the procedure. The
paradox being that the benefit-receiving part of the brain would be
destroyed without receiving any benefit.
My counter-proposal is to apply the concept of mind coalescence and
mind-meld with an external AI, avoiding unnecessary damage to the
original brain. If the procedure is successful, then the mind will have
a much firmer foundation of redundancy to start chucking obsolete parts,
when and if it decides to do so.
This does not completely resolve the paradox, it only provides you with
the tools that will allow you to address it in a way that you might find
acceptable.
This is not to say that after my proposal you'd necessarily go live like
a fairy in computronium. No, you still have the full breadth and depth
of human choices. Your >>> choice <<< of mentality does not at all imply
any choices about your physicality, there you have all of your tastes,
preferences, and desires to guide you.
--
E T F
N H E
D E D
Powers are not rights.
-------------------------------------------
AGI
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