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Why The Future Doesn't Need Us
Posted by
Hemos
on Tue Mar 21, 2000 11:00 AM
from the here's-the-article dept.
from the here's-the-article dept.
Concealed writes "There is an article in the new Wired which talks about the future of nanotechnology and 'intelligent machines.' Bill Joy, (also the creator of the Unix text editor vi) who wrote the article, expresses his views on the neccesity of the human race in the near future.
" From what I can gather this is the article that the Bill Joy on Extinction story was drawn from. Bill is a smart guy -- and this is well worth reading.
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Why The Future Doesn't Need Us
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Re:Intelligent? (Score:3)
The idea is that although the computer is superior in reaction times (and often, in number of units at the start of the level), you can beat it through better strategy and greater aggressiveness. Part of the fun of Dune 2 was working out the bugs or stupidities in the AI, and finding ways to exploit them.
Joy is merely bashing the individual (Score:3)
What bothers me almost as much as Joy's opinions are how he is advocating them. For someone with a doctorate, Joy shows a shocking lack of logical progression in his arguments. Joy brings up Ted Kaczynski merely to evoke emotions in the reader without acknowledging that Kaczynski refutes Joy's arguments about how individuals could misuse the technology of the future to inflict global harm. Joy doesn't even mention that a brilliant man like Kaczynski who is psychopathic would simply not have either the resources or the will to pursue the knowledge needed to inflict massive damage. Kaczynski once he left mathematics was starting from scratch as a bomb maker. Also since Kaczynski rejected technology all he had left was to fashion homemade bombs from simple materials. At no time was Ted Kaczynski capable of threatening global harm.
In fact for decades the popular media has reported many ways of threatening large populations such as attacks on the water supply or the air. The closest such incident that has happened was possibly a cult in Japan who were manufacturing poison gas.
I believe that any objective reading of history will show that whatever global threats existed in the last century came not from individuals but from governments. Organization and resources lie behind mass events. From the World Wars through the killing fields through Rwanda we have seen the death to millions that government sanctioned killing is capable of inflicting.
I find it very disturbing that one of the architects of Java is so strongly advocating restricting individual rights. I wonder what is the agenda behind advocating taking computing away from decentralized PCs and putting it back into centralized servers, of moving computing power away from general purpose user programmable PCs to dumb specialized appliances.
Re:More hardware != AI (Score:3)
I don't think that's a valid comparison; evolution is essentially a random process, and one that changes only generationally (if that's a word). With AI, even if you're using some manner of evolutionary algorithm, the changes will happen much quicker; many thousands of 'mutations' a day may be checked for efficacy.
The brain is not just a large neural net, and IMHO it will take far more understanding of both sapience and sentience before AI becomes a reality.
True(ish). Just as evolution has no intrinsic purpose, so it may be possible to 'grow' an electronic brain without fully understanding it. That brain could then be used to make a smarter brain (that even it may not understand), and so it goes.
Undestanding would be nice, but I don't think it'll be necessary.
Re:Being "replaced".... (Score:3)
so.... what now? (Score:3)
Speaking for myself, I know jack about nanotechnology, genetics, or robotics. The article itself went way over my head at times; I could hear the whistle as it sliced through the air. But I know enough about the necessity of evolution to be rather puzzled by what the next step would seem to be. If I understand him correctly, the only way to avoid imminent disaster is to declare a moratorium on all research and development on all the dangerous and scary forms of technology until we as a species have managed to grasp and deal with the ethical implications of what we're doing. This should be easy, since our species is so rational, cooperative, and willing to negotiate out ethical situations.
So what are we left with? The idea that our enthusiasm and passion for technology, truth, and science is hurtling us towards a cataclysm unless we as a species yank on the whoa reins of development in order to sit down and discuss whether or not this is actually a good idea. And, since humankind as a species has never been able to come to an overarching agreement on any one topic, it seems to me that we're doomed.
Which brings me back to the question I had when I finished skimming the article. What am I supposed to do about it? Unplug my computer? Join the Just Say No to Nanites consortium? Crawl into that leftover bunker from Y2K and pray that I can survive? For those of us not hobnobbing with scientific celebrities, what's the next step?
Everstar
Misunderstanding the Role of the Machine (Score:3)
People do not create machines to replace themselves and make decisions for them, they create machines to do small/repititive tasks efficiently, to accentuate human ability, and to add to the human's capability to do the things he needs to do. It's true that this nakes us more dependant on technology to some extent.
However, machines of the future, far from becoming seperate, sentient entities (pardon the alliteration), will exist to increase communication and facilitate better decision-making by humans, just as they do today.
David Gelernter's (sp?) books are very interesting in this regard. In Muse in the Machine he delves a little into psychology to postulate how we could make a "creative machine," but I think his book Mirror Worlds was more on the mark: how so-called intelligent technology will be used to facilitate decisions by people.
I believe computers will eventually become smart enough to reason much like a human, and to reach intelligent conclusions within their task space. However, it is quite a huge leap to say that somehow computers will begin acting in their own interests without regard to human convenience or life.
Giving power to machines... (Score:3)
Asimov had a great book about a voting system by which a computer picked A voter who represented all of the variables required to choose the right president.
And then the question comes down to. Who do you trust most ? Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ronald Regan, Margret Thatcher, Francois Mitterand, Helmut Kohl or a sentient machine.
Lets face it machines can't fuck up half as badly as politicians have mangaged to do over the last 100 years.
Re:Intelligent? (Score:3)
Most of the games you mention require that all AI be done in the background, as action occurs in the foreground. Since game makers usually view pretty graphics and smooth animation as primary, they tend to avoid any AI that might take lots of CPU cycles. Of course, lots of CPU cycles is exactly what you need if you want to create an AI that has any sort of strategic concept.
This is also true of strategic games like Civilization. Those games are far more complex than chess, yet though people will wait for two minutes for a chess computer to make a move, they complain if they have to wait ten seconds between turns in Civilization.
In general, game companies pretty much just suck at AI. I suspect few people have real training in it. Game AIs I've seen range from utter crap, to mediocre. A couple, like that in the "Warlords" series, do a little better. But in general, it is easier for game designers to use presets and scenerio designs as in "Age of Empires", allow the computer to cheat (certain aspects of "Civilization", or give it certain combat/production bonuses. A good AI takes real talent, while those other things are pretty easy to do.
But anyway, don't ever thing that game AI has anything at all to do with AI as it is practiced at places like MIT.
Open source and human/machine interfaces (Score:3)
Ask yourself what freedoms you are willing to give up to have the advances that cybernetic enhancements may provide. And ask it in the context of the rights that UCITA confers. Would you be willing to have something implanted in your body that:
1) Can be monitored without your consent?
2) Can be deactivated by the manufacturer?
3) You are not allowed to reverse engineer?
4) You are not permitted to publically criticism?
5) When it fails and permanently disables you, the manufacturer can disclaim all liability?
Thank you for playing. I want to be able to do my own security patches. I want to be able to compile out features that I don't trust.
Don't overlook the purpose of evolution (Score:3)
Evolution perfects you to survive in a particular niche. That's why humans behave the way we do - around the time of australopithecus it was more advantageous to see over the grass than to crawl around, so we started walking. It never became advantageous to crawl again. Then it became advantageous to use tools, so we learned how. Gradually, intelligence accreted, a particular kind of intelligence allowing us to survive in a world where other species of erect, somewhat intelligent simians (not to mention lions and tigers and bears, oh my) might try to kill us. We have a concept of "evil" only because the advantages of a structured society, which was a necessary and inevitable step in our evolution, are orthogonal to the advantages of killing your neighbor and taking his stuff. The nature of our intelligence, like the nature of our physical shape, has evolved to give us that concept.
That's why we fear machines - we fear that, like God, we will create them in our own images; only, unlike God, we won't be able to dictate their every move and thought. Indeed, this is why there are so many religious debates on these types of issues: because we don't feel we have the right to be gods. I feel that the truth is going to be quite different. Machines won't have to solve the same sorts of problems we will. They won't have kill tigers, they won't have to protect their families, they won't have to attempt to control more territory for their resources. Replicating, evolving machines, such as the type that Bill Joy thinks will devour us whole, will have to solve entirely different sets of problems for their survival, problems which--and this is very important--have little to no overlap over our own problems. They will need electrical power, and that's about it. If they evolve, it will be to find more and more efficient ways to collect sunlight. They won't have any interest in taking over the world because that is a mere reptilian biological imperative, planted into us by the ancient necessity of having territory in which to hunt safely.
They won't be aware of us really, unless we GIVE THEM the power of thought. Like aardvaarks or deer, they will only have to have as much thought as it takes to get the next meal. They don't have to be malevolent, or even sentient, to survive. And even if we do make them capable of reason (and it's almost inevitable that someone will), they will still use their reason to solve their own problems, not the problems that we think we have. Their own problems will mainly consist of the need to find a place to spread out a solar array so they can soak up all the juice they want, and maybe a little need for privacy. (Even that need is most likely a purely biological imperative though, most likely occasioned by the unsanitariness of living in close quarters with lots of humans.) Machines won't be evil, machines won't try to replace us, because they're not even in the same niche as us. It would be like orange trees competing with polar bears.
BOOOORING (Score:3)
"Hey mekka, why all caps?"
Becuase those are two images that have been culturally ingrained since the dawn of time...
any history of science class worth it's weight in silicon introduces this in the first week of class. I'll draw the pattern out for you. 1-> new invention. 2a-> doomsayers predict it will destroy us 2b-> optimists predict it will liberate us 3-> reality is that with new progresses we have new responsibilities. By virtue of their being more to gain we also have more to lose. Automobiles get us there faster, but if not operated properly they can be dangerous and they can kill is. Repeat this example ad infinitum and that's that.
It's a lot more concise than 11 pages. But I will admit, I am making an assumption that people who invent/create do try to think about the social implications.
p.s.- searle's "chinese room" argument can be torn to shreds by any sophomore/junior philosophy major in a matter of seconds.
Story was edited! (Score:4)
--- bar Tue Mar 21 11:11:19 2000
+++ foo Tue Mar 21 11:11:03 2000
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
Concealed writes "There is an article in the new Wired which talks
about the future of nanotechnology and 'intelligent machines.' Bill
- Joy, (also the creator of the Linux text editor vi) who wrote the article,
+ Joy, (also the creator of the Unix text editor vi) who wrote the article,
expresses his views on the neccesity of the human race in the near
future. " From what I can gather this is the article that the Bill Joy on Extinction
story was drawn from. Bill is a smart guy -- and this is well worth reading.
And no admission on Slashdot/Hemos' part. Shame on you.
My Beef with Joy---not the Joy of Beef (Score:4)
Being "replaced".... (Score:4)
Why do people feel so threatened? Each generation is "replaced" by the next. Yet few parents see their children as threats. In a healthy relationship, we not only fail to fear succession by our progeny, we actively encourage it. Everyone wants their kids to "go further" than they themselves did.
Other than the utterly irrelevant fact that these descendants will be silicon and metal, not carbon and water, is there any difference? These AIs will be heirs to Plato and Descartes, Jefferson and King, just like we are. Unencumbered by two megayears of grungy evolution, they might even get it right. Does it matter that they are not "flesh of our flesh"? Why should flesh matter at all?
Almost everyone seems to come to the brink of recognizing the commonality but then they veer away. What defines "humanity"? Is it really 46 chromosomes in a particular order? I argue instead that it is our intelligence that makes us special, our thinking ability. I won't get dragged into the old argument whether this means cold-blooded logic only or whether it includes human emotions (but I will say that I agree with the latter.) But no matter how you define it, no matter what features of human existence make us human, those features are not inextricably linked to our "ugly bags of mostly water".
The greatest fear I have is not that we will be replaced. It's that short-sighted species-centric thinking will obscure, delay, or throw away the trans-historic opportunities we will have in the coming century.
Our descendents won't be human. (Score:5)
The problem here is the implication that one day, a bunch of humans, just like us, are suddenly going to find themselves obsolete, and either destroyed, or perhaps ignored, but some new, superintelligent entity that they created. But I don't see it happening that way.
Instead, what we will see is a series of gradual changes. Genetically superior humans won't appear overnight. Instead, humans will be slowly made superior, genetically. Superintelligent robots won't suddenly appear. Instead, they will slowly improve, and around the same time, I firmly believe that hardware will start being connected to human brains and human limbs.
So yes, in a thousand years, the rulers of this earth may not seem much like what we'd call human. But I'm willing to bet that if you looked over the period in between, you wouldn't see "humans" going extinct. You'd see a slow process of evolution (not darwinian, but directed) towards something greater. You'd never be able to find a dividing line between "human" and what's next.
And while that may be frightening to some, it isn't really to me. We are "greater", at least in certain anthropomoprhic senses, than the ape-like creature that we are descended from. But that creature did not "go extinct". It evolved into us. Something is going to evolve from us. This doesn't necessarily mean that we're all going to die at the hands of some sort of "SkyNet" AI. It just means that we aren't the be-all and end-all of creation.
The human race won't be supplanted by "homo superior". It will become "homo superior".