On Oct 22, 2006, at 11:10 AM, Anna Taylor wrote:
On 10/22/06, Bill K wrote:
But I agree that huge military R&D expenditure (which already
supports
many, many research groups) is the place most likely to produce
singularity-level events.
I am aware that the military is the most likely place to produce
singularity-level events, i'm just trying to stay optimistic that a
war won't be the answer to advancing it.
War per se does not advance military research, but economics and
logistics. If it was about killing people, we could have stopped at
clubs and spears. The cost of R&D and procurement of new systems,
supporting and front line, are usually completely recovered within a
decade of deployment relative to the systems they replace, so it is
actually a "profitable" enterprise of sorts. This is the primary
reason military expenditures as a percentage of GDP continue to
rapidly shrink -- even in the US -- while the apparent capabilities
do not.
So you could say that the economics of responding to the mere threat
of war is adequate to drive all the research the military does.
Short of completely eliminating the military, there will always be
plenty of reason to do the R&D without ever firing a shot. While I
am doubtful that the military R&D programs will directly yield AGI,
they do fund a lot of interesting blue sky research.
J. Andrew Rogers
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