Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

The leap from ENIAC to sapient AI will be much shorter than bacteria to humans.

 

Well' date=' technically you must add the time for the Leap from Bacteria to current humans because Computers don't evolve on their own (yet).[/quote']

Wow. I didn't know we went back to bacteria and back up after ENIAC was invented.

 

Miss the paper for a few weeks . . ..

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

The leap from ENIAC to sapient AI will be much shorter than bacteria to humans.

 

Perhaps, but...it takes more than superintelligence to advance technology and science. It also takes experimentation and field verification of hypotheses. There's really no way for a super-smart AI to speed this up all that much. It will still take the same hours, days, weeks, months and years that it always has. And that will keep the tech curve from becoming hyperbolic.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Perhaps' date=' but...it takes more than superintelligence to advance technology and science. It also takes experimentation and field verification of hypotheses. There's really no way for a super-smart AI to speed this up all that much. It will still take the same hours, days, weeks, months and years that it always has. And that will keep the tech curve from becoming hyperbolic.[/quote']

Perhaps. Or an intelligence that thinks a thousand times faster than us and never sleeps may take two data sets we would never think of analyzing ourselves and looking for a connection. 99.999999999% of the correlations it finds will be bogus, non-replicable, chance coincidence. But that one in a hundred million may be the key to a Grand Unification theory, or similar beakthrough.

 

We have far, far more raw data than has ever been analyzed.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Who's to say humans won't be the kind of "evolution" that makes computers evolve? After all, we are part of the environment.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Who's to say humans won't be the kind of "evolution" that makes computers evolve? After all' date=' we [i']are[/i] part of the environment.

I've always assumed our evolutionary successors would be the product of intelligent design.

[Old Man]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

There really has to be another phrase we can use for that.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

I've always assumed our evolutionary successors would be the product of intelligent design.

 

I've always assumed our evolutionary successors would be, well, ourselves. There's a good return on investment to self-upgrading, but no percentage in rendering the basic product obsolete, nor creating a brand new line superior to the original (and acting like it, too). Which is why I keep coming back to biotech as being a more viable way forward than cyber-only. If most of our upgrades are inheritable, then we truly do evolve in the normative sense of the term.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

There really has to be another phrase we can use for that.

The irony was intentional.

 

I've always assumed our evolutionary successors would be' date=' well, ourselves. There's a good return on investment to self-upgrading, but no percentage in rendering the basic product obsolete, nor creating a brand new line superior to the original (and acting like it, too). Which is why I keep coming back to biotech as being a more viable way forward than cyber-only. If most of our upgrades are inheritable, then we truly do evolve in the normative sense of the term.[/quote']

But our biological children will always have the limitations of being carbon based, our intelectual children, not so much.

 

Of course that is really a false dilema, we'll probably do both.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

The irony was intentional.

 

 

But our biological children will always have the limitations of being carbon based, our intelectual children, not so much.

 

Of course that is really a false dilema, we'll probably do both.

 

While we've accomplished enough in the field of computers and cybernetics and even nanotech to reasonably speculate about what we might be able to achieve with it, we've by comparison barely scratched the surface with biotech and have no idea what the upper limits of that might be(if you could give someone a 300 IQ, the creative talent of a Da Vinci, the abstract thought capability of an Einstein, the social intelligence of a diplomat, total recall, lightning calculation, heightened perception and speed reading--that is arguably "superhuman intelligence"). We don't actually know what the upper limits of capability for carbon-based life might be--it could be substantially higher than we imagine it to be.

[McCoy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

While we've accomplished enough in the field of computers and cybernetics and even nanotech to reasonably speculate about what we might be able to achieve with it' date=' we've by comparison barely scratched the surface with biotech and have no idea what the upper limits of that might be(if you could give someone a 300 IQ, the creative talent of a Da Vinci, the abstract thought capability of an Einstein, the social intelligence of a diplomat, total recall, lightning calculation, heightened perception and speed reading--that is arguably "superhuman intelligence"). We don't actually know what the upper limits of capability for carbon-based life might be--it could be substantially higher than we imagine it to be.[/quote']

As someone with a degree in biology, I'm pretty sure you've got that backward. Life is far more adaptable than we dreamed, but still has problems with temperature, pressure, and radiation that a non-carbon AI can be engineered to survive.

 

Any idea what it would take to bioengineer a mammal to survive where we've sent the Mars rover probes?

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

As someone with a degree in biology, I'm pretty sure you've got that backward. Life is far more adaptable than we dreamed, but still has problems with temperature, pressure, and radiation that a non-carbon AI can be engineered to survive.

 

Any idea what it would take to bioengineer a mammal to survive where we've sent the Mars rover probes?

 

We have lifeforms existing beyond crush depth in the ocean, surviving massive radiation elsewhere, and surviving pretty substantial temperature extremes(near-boiling temperatures, 100+ degrees below zero). And that's without doing any bio-engineering. If we could engineer a carbon lifeform to tolerate temperature extremes, low pressure/vaccuum, and to function anaerobically for extended periods of time, then we could survive in space. The point being, we've barely scratched the surface of what could be accomplished via bio-engineering. Yes, you could engineer a "body" for a non-carbon AI to survive almost anything in...at extreme expense. Raw materials can be quite scarce and quite expensive, depending on what you're using. It's probably cheaper to just bio-engineer a sturdier, smarter human, and then throw them in a suit or vehicle or habitat. It's somewhat like automotive safety--you could build a perfectly safe car, but it would cost a million dollars and weigh 4 tons.

[Christopher]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Any idea what it would take to bioengineer a mammal to survive where we've sent the Mars rover probes?

It works because they are simple, limited. Simple things are way easier to adapt than anything with the manipulatory/moving ability of humans.

Opportunity has the following Computer specifications (wikipedia):

20 MHz RAD6000 CPU with 128 MB of DRAM, 3 MB of EEPROM, and 256 MB of flash memory.

it get's about 140 watt out of it's solar cells.

 

It was launched 2003 where we had this in our desktop Computers:

CPU's of up to 3 GHZ:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/benchmark-marathon,590.html

removeable flash memory in the gigabyte range:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_memory_cards

 

And these are only for desktop Computers. The "real" stuff was better than that.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

In advocating for bio-engineering over cybernetic augmentation, I start from the premise that human bio-architecture, all in all, is pretty darn good. We've evolved stereoscopic vision, cognition, tool-making and using, language and civilization. We walk upright, have opposable thumbs, and have managed to adapt to a variety of climates. We're reasonably sturdy and became the dominant life form on the planet within a relative eyeblink of geological time. Through the simple development of immunology, medicine, surgery, nutrition, etc., we've managed to cut infant mortality dramatically, extended average life expectancy by a factor of roughly 2 within 100 years, improved the quality of life for people with chronic illnesses(and for the aged), and established a world-wide communications and culture-sharing system we call "the internet". Computers didn't do this stuff, people did. Computers helped, yes, but only as tools, not as agents. Now we're discovering the wonder of stem cells, performing face and hand and limb transplants(even contemplating head and/or brain transplants--little did I know that head transplants have been successfully performed in animals, though the animals usually die after a period of time), mapping the entire human genome, grafting/growing human organs inside animals, even contemplating growing human organs in vats. We've explored the use of DNA molecules as organic computation machines. We've explored the use of performance enhancing drugs.

 

And, like I said, we've only begun to scratch the surface of biotech. I think cybernetics may wind up being the "short game" and biotech the "long game" here. And perhaps someday the two may become indistinguishable from each other.

[Old Man]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Any idea what it would take to bioengineer a mammal to survive where we've sent the Mars rover probes?

 

A mammal? Probably impossible for the foreseeable future because of the utter lack of atmospheric oxygen as well as the high radiation. Oh, and the complete absence of anything to eat.

 

That said, I did a grad school paper on terraforming. I don't think it would be all that difficult to breed or engineer a form of algae that could survive on Mars and that would eventually increase the oxygen percentage on a geologic timescale. In fact if the grant had come through I had planned to do exactly that. And I did the research before many of the recent extremophile discoveries, so I'm sure there are even better candidates to start with.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

A mammal? Probably impossible for the foreseeable future because of the utter lack of atmospheric oxygen as well as the high radiation. Oh, and the complete absence of anything to eat.

 

That said, I did a grad school paper on terraforming. I don't think it would be all that difficult to breed or engineer a form of algae that could survive on Mars and that would eventually increase the oxygen percentage on a geologic timescale. In fact if the grant had come through I had planned to do exactly that. And I did the research before many of the recent extremophile discoveries, so I'm sure there are even better candidates to start with.

 

Great! Let's just invent immortality first, then invent the 500,000 year long terraforming process .

[Christopher]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Great! Let's just invent immortality first' date=' [i']then[/i] invent the 500,000 year long terraforming process .

When we first invent imortality, the earth will be overcrowded long before we even leave Phase 1 of the Terraforming

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

When we first invent imortality' date=' the earth will be overcrowded long before we even leave Phase 1 of the Terraforming [/quote']

 

There will certainly have to be some "lifestyle compromises", that's for sure--a hard cap on new births, based on how many deaths there were. I suspect you won't see true immortality(i.e., not just unaging but can't be killed by any means), which means the leading causes of death will be suicide, accident or homicide. We might have consciousness uploading used as a means of freeing up space for new children(great-grandpa volunteers to be uploaded to the Matrix so that his great-grandkid can have their own child).

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

There will certainly have to be some "lifestyle compromises"' date=' that's for sure--a hard cap on new births, based on how many deaths there were. I suspect you won't see true immortality(i.e., not just unaging but can't be killed by any means), which means the leading causes of death will be suicide, accident or homicide. We might have consciousness uploading used as a means of freeing up space for new children(great-grandpa volunteers to be uploaded to the Matrix so that his great-grandkid can have their own child).[/quote']

 

We could start with O'Neill Cylinders. Just a thought!

[Old Man]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Great! Let's just invent immortality first' date=' [i']then[/i] invent the 500,000 year long terraforming process .

 

When terraforming, it helps to take the long view.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

When terraforming' date=' it helps to take the long view.[/quote']

 

Agreed, but current humans have problems with long views when it comes to, say, ten to twenty year plans that will benefit society on the whole. We'd need a lot of disposable income for a five hundred thousand year plan to even start to become feasible .

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Yump.

[Gnaskar]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

Agreed' date=' but current humans have problems with long views when it comes to, say, [i']ten to twenty year[/i] plans that will benefit society on the whole. We'd need a lot of disposable income for a five hundred thousand year plan to even start to become feasible .

 

That's because the planet is mostly controlled by old men who don't really expect to live long enough to reap the benefit of a twenty year project. Once clinical immortality enters the picture things will (hopefully) change when it comes to human short sightedness.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

At the moment, 75 year projections are about as far-sighted as we tend to get.

[Sundog]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

At the moment' date=' 75 year projections are about as far-sighted as we tend to get.[/quote']

 

And we usually get those wrong.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

 

That's because the planet is mostly controlled by old men who don't really expect to live long enough to reap the benefit of a twenty year project. Once clinical immortality enters the picture things will (hopefully) change when it comes to human short sightedness.