John,
I have thought about this. According multiple articles I have read on the web, the current guestimate is that there are 30-50 million habitable planets on the web (some think the number was actually larger 4 billion years ago, meaning the many planet systems are actually far ahead of us in terms of their life cycles). If you assumed that just 1 million of them had intelligent life, and if you assumed those planets were randomly distributed throughout the galaxys volume, that would be roughly one planet with intelligent life within every cube 400 light years on a side. Not that far for AGI probes traveling at 1//10 to 1/100 the speed of light. So the possibility of the earth being visited by intelligent aliens, although far from certain, is not so low as to warrant ridicule. I have personally never seen a UFO. Because I have tremendous faith in the human minds powers of mis-perceptioin and delusion, I still question those who say they have. But I have met quite a few reasonable people who claim they have, and have heard of a number of notable people have, reported seeing them. If, as some think the aliens are monitoring us, it just might be possible that once the singularity is just about to occur, or has just occurred, the aliens might then intervene either militarily or at least by opening direct talks with out, because at that point we might be within decades or centuries of being a threat to them. Its similar to the way a lot of companies with big patent portfolios operate. They dont bother negotiating with you until you become big enough to be worth the trouble. Ed Porter -----Original Message----- From: John G. Rose [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 7:37 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [agi] What best evidence for fast AI? Yes this is true. Sometimes though I think that we need to build AGI weapons ASAP. Why? The human race needs to protect itself from other potentially aggressive beings. Humans treat animals pretty bad as an example. The earth is a sitting duck. How do we defend ourselves? Clumsy nukes? Not good enough there needs to be new breakthroughs in AGI/nanotech/digital physics that brings in new weaponry. Thats the ugly reality. The alternative is to say that no other advanced beings exist or if they do, assume that theyll be friendly. Sounds sci-fi-ish but it is not. John From: Edward W. Porter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] John, Robin's original post said "I've been invited to write an article for an upcoming special issue of IEEE Spectrum on "Singularity", which in this context means rapid and large social change from human-level or higher artificial intelligence. " I assume he is smart enought to know that superintelligent machines pose some threats and will have significant social consequences (that's why it is called the singularity). And certainly such threats have been discussed on this list many times before. I personally think it is possible AGI could bring in a much better existence, but only if intelligence augmentation makes us more intelligent as nations and as a world, if it lets us stay competative with the machines we build, and if it causes us to build mainly only machines that have been designed to be campatible with, and hopefully care for, us.. Ed Poter _____ This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/? <http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > & ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=63979874-121183
