tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post6521394081947829222..comments2024-03-28T03:16:14.104-04:00Comments on Noahpinion: A futurist post: Noahstradamus predicts The Singularity (and lack thereof)Noah Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-44851283550580379962014-05-19T03:00:00.878-04:002014-05-19T03:00:00.878-04:00With respect to control of the human genome... It...With respect to control of the human genome... It seems unlikely that desires are both so simple that they can be encoded statically in the genome and so complicated that computers cannot have desires and act autonomously based on those desires.Cesiumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02025636403503365433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-39740665401377873922014-05-19T02:56:11.518-04:002014-05-19T02:56:11.518-04:00Artificial Intelligence: First comment: We alrea...Artificial Intelligence: First comment: We already have "entities with greater than human intelligence". In the 1960s, it wasn't one human intelligence that put a man on the moon. It was a collaboration.<br /><br />Second comment: No, humans do not have some special magical essence that computers cannot obtain. A human is a collection of molecules. The brain is a machine. We have an existence proof that intelligence is possible. Put together enough computer hardware, and the software that runs on it starts doing interesting things. I write software every day that has independence of action. That's the whole point. I can't be sitting there constantly monitoring the software and telling it what to do. The software has to run on its own without my supervision. Every time the software breaks and I need to intervene, I fix the software so that next time it encounters that problem, it won't need me.<br /><br />In many ways, the second comment is moot because of the first comment. If you take two piles of transistors sitting in two separate boxes, and run a few communications wires between them, you now have a distributed computer that is smarter than a single computer. If you take a couple of humans and connected them up with communications, you have a distributed human computer that is smarter than either individual. Autonomous or not, more computing power makes humans more intelligent, and that overall increase in intelligence is a big part of the singularity.<br /><br />Another part is the ability to provide limited amounts of intelligence to very small components. The car has improved exponentially over the past 100 years. (The rate of improvement is small, but still exponential.) 100 years ago, we didn't have cruise control; we didn't have anti-lock braking; we didn't have beam shaping headlights; we didn't have fuel injection; we didn't have on-star. There are a variety of distinct places in the car where we've added small amounts of intelligence. We've added small amounts of intelligence to our washers, dryers, fridges, microwave ovens, coffee makers, and toasters. We're building ocean-going robots that monitor and report back; we have designs for fleets of space based telescopes that constantly monitor and report back. Making limited intelligence ubiquitous is game changing.Cesiumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02025636403503365433noreply@blogger.com