On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 3:27 AM, J Storrs Hall, PhD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thursday 06 March 2008 06:46:43 pm, Vladimir Nesov wrote: > > My argument doesn't need 'something of a completely different kind'. > > Society and human is fine as substitute for human and carrot in my > > example, only if society could extract profit from replacing humans > > with 'cultivated humans'. But we don't have cultivated humans, and we > > are not at the point where existing humans need to be cleared to make > > space for new ones. > > The scenario takes on an entirely different tone if you replace "weed out > some > wild carrots" with "kill all the old people who are economically > inefficient". In particular the former is something one can easily imagine > people doing without a second thought, while the latter is likely to generate > considerable opposition in society. >
Sufficient enforcement is in place for this case: people steer governments in the direction where laws won't allow that when they age, evolutionary and memetic drives oppose it. It's too costly to overcome these drives and destroy counterproductive humans. But this cost is independent from potential gain from replacement. As the gain increases, decision can change, again we only need sufficiently good 'cultivated humans'. Consider expensive medical treatments which most countries won't give away when dying people can't afford them. Life has a cost, and this cost can be met. > > > The only thing that could keep future society from derailing in this > > direction is some kind of enforcement installed in minds of future > > dominant individuals/societies by us lesser species while we are still > > in power. > > All we need to do is to make sure they have the same ideas of morality and > ethics that we do -- the same as we would raise any other children. > Yes, something like this, but much 'stronger' to meet increased power. > > > Note that if some super-intelligence were possible and optimal, > evolution > > > could have opted for fewer bigger brains in a dominant race. It didn't > -- > > > note our brains are actually 10% smaller than Neanderthals. This isn't > proof > > > that an optimal system is brains of our size acting in social/economic > > > groups, but I'd claim that anyone arguing the opposite has the burden of > > > proof (and no supporting evidence I've seen). > > > > > > > Sorry, I don't understand this point. We are the first species to > > successfully launch culture. Culture is much more powerful then > > individuals, if only through parallelism and longer lifespan. What > > follows from it? > > So how would you design a super-intelligence: > (a) a single giant blob modelled on an individual human mind > (b) a society (complete with culture) with lots of human-level minds and > high-speed communication? > > We know (b) works if you can build the individual human-level mind. Nobody > has > a clue that (a) is even possible. There's lots of evidence that even human > minds have many interacting parts. > This is a technical question with no good answer, why is it relevant? There is no essential difference, society in present form has many communicational bottlenecks, but with better mind-mind interfaces distinction can blur. Upgrade to more efficient minds in this network would clearly benefit the collective. :-) -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=95818715-a78a9b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
