The Singularity?

[Nyrath]

Re: The Singularity?

 

Well, if you read some of the writing about the singularity, they go even more extreme.

 

You know how it took a few years for us to go from VHS video tapes to DVDs? They say that shortly before the singularity such changes will be happening on a timescale of microseconds, not years.

[RexMundi]

Re: The Singularity?

 

See now that right there, sounds wonky.

 

~Rex

[Kristopher]

Re: The Singularity?

 

The problem isn't with the general concept, the problem is that it's supposed to happen all at once, and hasn't happened yet. It's that capital "S", and the true believers, and the fervor.

[Kristopher]

Re: The Singularity?

 

Well, if you read some of the writing about the singularity, they go even more extreme.

 

You know how it took a few years for us to go from VHS video tapes to DVDs? They say that shortly before the singularity such changes will be happening on a timescale of microseconds, not years.

 

I would point them instead to the lukewarm uptake of Blu-Ray as a counter-example.

[RexMundi]

Re: The Singularity?

 

It's the timescale that doesn't make sense to me. Is new stuff just supposed to just magically appear out of thin air then be just as quickly if not more so replaced?

 

~Rex

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: The Singularity?

 

One version I heard had it that the Singularity would occur when AI's acquired the capability to upgrade their own software -- in other words, when they could direct their own evolution at whatever processing speed is available to them. Now, what if some of the AI's in question choose to optimize themselves to evolve even faster...and their 'descendants' continue to do the same? The word 'god-like' comes to mind....

 

 

Don't look at me,

Xavier Onassiss

[Kristopher]

Re: The Singularity?

 

It's the timescale that doesn't make sense to me. Is new stuff just supposed to just magically appear out of thin air then be just as quickly if not more so replaced?

 

Well, you see, all those really smart computers are going to make all the development faster and faster, including developing faster computers, which will make the development faster, which will make the development faster, which will...

[Kristopher]

Re: The Singularity?

 

One version I heard had it that the Singularity would occur when AI's acquired the capability to upgrade their own software -- in other words' date=' when they could direct their own evolution at whatever processing speed is available to them. Now, what if some of the AI's in question choose to optimize themselves to evolve even faster...and their 'descendants' continue to do the same? The word 'god-like' comes to mind....[/quote']

 

That's what the power cord is for...

 

"I AM YOUR GOD, PUNY HU" **yank**

[Nyrath]

Re: The Singularity?

 

It's the timescale that doesn't make sense to me. Is new stuff just supposed to just magically appear out of thin air then be just as quickly if not more so replaced?

Not quite.

 

It means that sometime in the next couple of decades some clown will invent a computer with artificial intelligence that is smarter than we are. Since your average computer can think about five million times faster than we can, every six seconds it can do as much thinking as we can do in twelve months. It will be able to bootstrap itself into becoming a super computers. Give it a few minutes and the super computer can boostrap itself into being a super-duper computer. In less time it can become a super-super-duper computer.

 

As it thinks faster and faster, and becomes more and more intelligent, it will be the entity making new technological advances and engaging in planned obsolescence in a timeframe of microseconds. If we are lucky, it will allow us to upload our brains into the system so we can participate.

 

Alternatively, the Singularity might come not with intelligent computers, but by increasing our own intelligence. A "Flowers for Algernon" scenario, but without the balloon popping.

[RexMundi]

Re: The Singularity?

 

So where's all the infinite power come from to fuel all this infinite inertialess forward progression? There seems to me to be far to much "Rub the Genie Lamp" here to give it much credibility.

 

~Rex

[Kristopher]

Re: The Singularity?

 

So where's all the infinite power come from to fuel all this infinite inertialess forward progression? There seems to me to be far to much "Rub the Genie Lamp" here to give it much credibility.

 

You mean in terms of electrical power? Well, part of it's increased efficiency, supposedly, along with new sources. Eventually, you get to the "all the power of an entire sun is captured and used" level. Not sure how much stock in I put in Kardeshev's work.

 

Another aspect of the Singularity is "nanotech". Of course, the nanotech of science fiction is often just another name for magic, as the little buggers seem to run without needing power or generating any waste heat.

[austenandrews]

Re: The Singularity?

 

These kind of ad absurdum scenarios are what Douglas Adams thrived on. It's weird to hear people taking them seriously.

[RexMundi]

Re: The Singularity?

 

One would think Relativity would factor in here somewhere.

 

~Rex

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: The Singularity?

 

For all rates of technological innovation, the rate of lightbulbs forming in thought balloons is constant.

[austenandrews]

Re: The Singularity?

 

But they're LED arrays now!

[Old Man]

Re: The Singularity?

 

So where's all the infinite power come from to fuel all this infinite inertialess forward progression? There seems to me to be far to much "Rub the Genie Lamp" here to give it much credibility.

 

IIRC they hook you all up to the Matrix and power themselves off your body heat. Knock knock, Neo.

[Tasha]

Re: The Singularity?

 

There seems to be a consensus that computing power will eventually plateau. That even Quantum Computers will hit a material ceiling that prevents them from going faster. Also all computers have to deal with the speed of light and that will eventually trip up how fast we can transmit information. I also have this issue with the realism of being able to implement new tech instantly. It always takes a bit of time to figure out how to mass produce something and then to create or adapt machines to produce something new. So this instantaneously inventing something new and implementing that something is kind of unrealistic.

[Kristopher]

Re: The Singularity?

 

For me, it comes down to something more simple: technolnogy exists to serve peoople. If people feel they can't keep up, they'll just not buy or use the latest thing.

[Cancer]

Re: The Singularity?

 

If we tried to go to the Moon today' date=' we could, and it would be faster, better, and safer than the Apollo program. I think people don't realized just how hard that endeavor pushed against the edge of what was actually possible at the time.[/quote']

 

Those of us who lived with it know. Especially those who remember Apollo XIII. I read once from a source I trusted -- but I have never been able to see it confirmed anywhere else -- that in order to solve for the spacecraft's new orbit (because the explosion in the Service Module put it into a new and unknown trajectory) and solve for how to put the spacecraft back onto a trajectory that would do one loop around the Moon and back to Earth such that it could survive passage through the atmosphere, and get both solutions in the limited time given by the oxygen supply -- NASA requisitioned/borrowed/begged/otherwise got use of a quarter of the computing capacity of North America. That computing is trivial now, but in 1970, with that time's vastly punier machines and only punch cards, mag tapes, and SneakerNet for communicating data between machines, it's an intellectual logistics-under-time-pressure accomplishment that dwarfs anything since then. It's not just heroic; it's superheroic.

[Old Man]

Re: The Singularity?

 

Exactly. We put a man on the moon using slide rules. That's not an exaggeration.

[Nyrath]

Re: The Singularity?

 

For me' date=' it comes down to something more simple: technolnogy exists to serve peoople. If people feel they can't keep up, they'll just not buy or use the latest thing.[/quote']

 

Ummmmm, not to put too fine a point on it, but in the Terminator movies, the people could not keep up but it was not an option to not buy or use SkyNet. As much as you didn't want them, the blasted terminators would hunt you down and kill you.

In the same way, if we inadvertently start the singularity by creating an intelligent computer ten thousand times smarter than we are, it can do to us pretty much whatever it wants.

[austenandrews]

Re: The Singularity?

 

Why would it be able to do whatever it wants?

[Kristopher]

Re: The Singularity?

 

Ummmmm, not to put too fine a point on it, but in the Terminator movies, the people could not keep up but it was not an option to not buy or use SkyNet. As much as you didn't want them, the blasted terminators would hunt you down and kill you.

In the same way, if we inadvertently start the singularity by creating an intelligent computer ten thousand times smarter than we are, it can do to us pretty much whatever it wants.

 

I would ask "what does 10000 times smarter actually mean?", and point out that power line running into the facility where the AI is located.

[Peregrine]

Re: The Singularity?

 

I would ask "what does 10000 times smarter actually mean?"' date=' and point out that power line running into the facility where the AI is located.[/quote']

 

1. Typically, multiple redundant power lines, to provide power in the event of a cut power line. Same with Internet connections.

 

2. Look at the Internet automation of the power grid that is currently being discussed, and imagine an AI taking surreptitious control in order to secure its power supply.

[Markdoc]

Re: The Singularity?

 

I would ask "what does 10000 times smarter actually mean?"' date=' and point out that power line running into the facility where the AI is located.[/quote']

 

This is the problem and the key to the concept of the singularity: us meatheads literally can't actually understand what 10,000x smarter actually would mean. The way we behave to and interact with ants might be a reasonable analogy. So you go to cut the power to the AI and then think "Hey, where the facility go? It was right here a minute ago!"

 

Basically across such a huge gap it's impossible to predict what's going on and what might seem to us physical impossibilities might seem pretty straightforward to them. Imagine trying to explain the internet to a caveman, for example. That's the theory of course - I don't really see any sign of it happening currently.

 

cheers, Mark