Does anyone know what Bill Gates thinks about the singularity? (Or for that matter, other great philanthropists.) On Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near" (paperback edition), he has a blurb saying Kurzweil is "The best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence." He also has a great deal of interest in philanthropy and alleviating poverty.
If he believes that there will be a singularity, it seems like there might be important projects he could fund that could potentially make an enormous difference by bringing the benefits of the singularity quicker than might otherwise happen, e.g. artificial general intelligence.... assuming of course the singularity will on the whole be a good thing and that whatever steps might be taken to bring it about sooner don't increase the risks involved. Another concern it would make sense to have though, would be that although the singularity would probably benefit a great deal of people, it is not clear how much it would immediately benefit those who are most in need. (Hopefully, it would at least not make them any worse off immediately.) If anything like Rawls's political theory of justice is right, our first priority (politically at least) should be to try to help those who are currently worst off. Thus, if that is one's priorities, it might still make sense to concentrate on more direct efforts to help the global poor. Ku ----- 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/?list_id=11983
