You might sum up my point by saying that a true and strong AI is not simply a technology, though it may be the result of a technological process. I don’t want to split hairs about the definition of ‘technology.’ That might be fun and all, but I’m simply saying that it would be an amazing display of hubris and egocentrism to treat a newly emerging intelligence the same way your treat the splitting of the atom. There may be similarities, but the very significant differences necessitate a completely different--and I would argue reciprocal--relationship to the ‘technology’ in question.

I’m not particularly worried about strong AI anytime soon, but sudden advances do happen for various reasons, so it’s hard to say when or if strong AI will emerge. Generally, ‘quantum leaps’ propel us into the realization that our previous notions were naive and simplistic, and humans aren’t nearly as patient and prudent as we should be with new and powerful tools. This is tragically true in many cases, but the introduction of strong AI would represent a unique bifurcation point in human history and a significant one in the evolutionary history of Earth.

The inception of strong AI represents the evolutionary birth of a new species with the potential to rival and even surpass human cognitive and computational capabilities. Whether we form a symbiotic or competitive relationship with this new species is a terrifically valid concern, especially because the choice will not rest solely with humanity. It would be stupendously foolish should humanity not exercise foresight in this regard. Obviously AI is not humanities most pressing concern, but even if strong AI proves to be impossible or distant, it is simply not the kind of endeavor we should rush into without global agreed upon protocols, and in this case protocols that empathize with and respect an emergent and potentially potent sentient species and evolutionary rival. Of course humans rarely agree upon anything, but that is not a license to operate recklessly.

Do I think humanity will be prudent and exercise forethought in this regard? I really don't know. Though I tend to be cynical, humans do have a habit of pulling together when the chips are down. It’s just unfortunate that we lean so heavily on catastrophe as a catalyst for rational action. Moreover, as the power of our tools increases--or you might say progeny in this case--the less margin we have to overcome a catastrophic mistake.

Sure, it would be awesome and in useful, in many ways, to have a semi-permanent base on Mars. It probably should be a long term goal, but not a current focus.

Terraforming itself is unrealistic even as an extremely long term goal. Who knows what the technology will render possible, but Mars isn’t a great candidate for terraforming. Its gravitational field is weak and it has little or no magnetosphere to name a few things; both of these factors greatly degrade its capacity to maintain a substantial atmosphere. Even if Mars were a near perfect candidate, the cost, required will, and logistical/technological challenges would be staggering. We can barely make a positive dent in Earth’s biosphere (many would argue we've only had a negative impact despite the fact that our lives depend on it); and we only have vague ideas about how to begin building any kind of atmosphere on Mars, much less an atmosphere conducive to Earth-like biodiversity. An Earth-like atmosphere is just one facet...and so on. It would only be a realistic endeavor for a vastly more technologically advanced humanity, not to mention one that otherwise had its shit together.

I've always held we are more likely to visualize ourselves before we terraform another planet.

You said:

Consider these statements from my last reply:

and

As such, I'm not sure we disagree significantly on that specific point.

My point is that I once held an fairly optimistic stance regarding the possible numbers of alien civilizations 'out there.' That stance has been tempered and refined as we discover just how many things Earth has going for it. Are all of them strictly necessary? By no means, but there is probably a critical mass in the matrix of variables needed to foster not only life, but an ongoing evolutionary process. Will there be harsh world outliers? Probably so given the number of potential planets out there, but I am simply saying that the known universe is far more inhospitable than I had once imagined.

Just as an aside; I can’t tell you the last time I watched the Discovery channel or its ilk. I do watch Nova and Nature on occasion, and I really enjoyed Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of the Universe (which may actually show on Discovery for all I know). I see other things from time to time, but I find most TV shows repetitive and over-simplified, so I stopped watching them, by and large, many years ago.

Fair enough; of course I would be hard pressed to defend any of this in a rigorous manner as I am neither a trained scientist nor in the habit of reading scholarly papers, journals, etc. The 'scientific' facets of my worldview are largely informed via popular scientific outlets, some more rigorous than others. I certainly haven't scoured the scientific papers on the subject.

On the other hand, I wonder what you mean by 'very popular claim?' Do you mean a claim made often by non-scientist? Perhaps, but there are easily accessible statements by scientist from various disciplines that speak to the Moon's theorized role in Earth's evolutionary process from the stabilization of the axis, to the early tilde affects on Earth's magma (when the Moon was much closer), to decreasing the amount of asteroid and comet hits we take, to regulating ocean tides, etc. Again, these come to me filtered through popularized media, but they are claims made by scientists.

In any case, I wouldn't argue that a moon like the Moon is necessary for life, nor could I, but don't think its unreasonable to argue that it makes Earth a much more hospitable place to live. And again, the Drake equation isn't about just any kind of life, but about sentient life capable of reaching advancement roughly on par with human culture (or beyond of course). Is a Moon like moon a necessary condition for advanced sentient species? Probably not, but there is probably a critical mass of non-necessary conditions that is necessary...if that makes any sense.

Indeed, but I wasn't commenting on the equation as much as the tendency to plug in optimistic numbers yielding estimates of tens of thousands of advanced civilizations in the Milky Way alone. I don't have the numbers handy (so my memory may be betraying me), but I believe that somewhere around 90% of stars, in our galaxy, reside in areas too violent to support life for the requisite periods of time regardless of all other factors. I'm not qualified in the least to say whether you facter that into R itself, or if fi is more appropriate. Either way, when you start trying to determine a sound value for ne considering myriad variables like magnetosphere, tectonics, temperature, sufficient H2O, etc., I'd guess N is orders of magnitude less than what was in vogue decades ago.

Just another example on how many factors affect a planet’s ability to support life not to mention sentient species and civilizations. The more we learn, the longer the list becomes (e.g. the right kind of star system with the right kind of star, the right planetary materials in the right zone, the right kind of magnetosphere, the right kind of moon, shepherd planets, the right kind of galaxy/cluster, the right place in place in the galaxy/cluster, the right kind of geological tectonics, the right kind of asteroid/comet hits, the right kind of mass extinctions and evolutionary histories, and so on).

The universe (not to mention a potential multiverse) certainly contains many planets capable of supporting civilizations, but the numbers are certainly bleaker than the old Drake equations.

Cheers. I loved Tunnels of Doom, but god did I hate that tape drive. It would error out half the time making the 40 minute load time a 60 minute load or worse. I Office Spaced that thing before it was a verb.

Good memories indeed. That and other 'pure' games like Star Raiders (Atari 400/800/1200). Damn if that TI 99 voice synthesizer wasn't made from alien technology. It was very human sounding, and decades later Steven Hawkins still sounded like a 1930s radio drama robot.

The first 1st personish game I remember on a PC was Tunnels of Doom on the TI 99. It's certainly wasn’t an FPS, but good portion of the game was moving through the hallways (or tunnels I suppose), which was from a 1st person perspective.

Ahh Tunnels of Doom; nothing like sitting around for 40 minutes while the game loaded from a cassette tape drive.

Yes I misinterpreted your comment. I think we agree for the most part.

I would say that improving one's social skills, though draining on an introvert, has intrinsic value above and beyond career advancement. Its a fine line; I personally find self-marketing and political maneuvering distasteful as means toward some ends, but if one learns to integrate better social habits in an honest effort to better the self, it can enrich one's life across the board--including by but no limited to career advancement. I might wish to argue that increasing one's social acumen as a means to greater eudaimonia will get one farther in career than 'faking it,' but that's probably idealistic and untrue.

This is an intelligent, reasonable comment that I find completely wrong headed. Everyone has their own perspective and stake in a cooperative endeavor. In the case of a business, sure, some owners may want the workplace to be about profit and efficacy to the exclusion of all other factors, but there is more to life than that. We are social organisms, and we spend large portions of our lives in our work environments. Whether we like it or not, most of us have a biological need for these environments to be fulfilling beyond raw monitory concerns. As such and assuming that ‘communication skills’ is code for social skills, that shouldn’t be discounted, belittled or subordinated to profit making. Now that doesn’t mean socially withdrawn people are any less valuable (I’m a mildly autistic and very introverted myself); I’m simply saying that the overall social environment of any collaboration is important.

BTW, I’m not trying to discount stakeholders’ reasonable expectations for efficiency and profit, but just as capital is not the only facet of a business, the needs of the stakeholders do not totally eclipse the needs of those who provide labor, ideas, or even enrichment of the social environment.

Creating an elaborate web of rules that attempts to prevent abuses is futile and ultimately counterproductive.

Though the concept of lobbying and private campaign contributions (of any kind) are sound in the abstract; they are simply too easily gamed and abused in practice. The real answer to much of what ills the American political process is the is the abolishment of organized lobbying and a complete revamp of the campaign process to a shorter, solely publicly funded model. Would these changes engender significant negative consequences? Certainly, but the advantages greatly exceed those negative consequences.

On a somewhat tangential note, a logical response to government corruption and ineptitude shouldn’t be hostility to the very idea of government; it should be hostility to those who are corrupting the government and the democratic ouster of inept officials (of course, we seem to have an inept public, so there is that). Contemporary first-world governments, as dysfunctional and corrupt as they may be, are still doing their part to maintain the greatest societies humanity has ever known. Technology and markets certainly have an equal share of the credit, but, as I have said on /. many times, there are numerous examples of societies with small, weak governments and they are not dreamy utopias of human freedom and economic prosperity. Its no accident that the most economically powerful nations with the most civil liberties in history have huge governments: governments work, even when they suck. So, the answer isn’t to be hostile to the idea of government, but to play a citizen's role in helping government more closely approach its ideal potential.

It's better to have a bloated, current government that preforms the function of governance reasonably well, than a lean, clean government that is incapable of doing so. Reality is messy. We would all like perfect solutions, but sometimes we have to live with solutions that provide the most pragmatically positive result.

PS it is appalling nevertheless.

News flash: new powerful tool has great potential for both good and ill!

I’m not trying to discount the potential misuse of data-intelligence such as this, but data-tracking will inexorably become ubiquitous in our lives. Djinnis don’t go back into bottles. Not only will it become increasingly difficult to opt out of such data-tracking, the public will to opt out is diminishing as younger generations concept of privacy shifts. (I lazily try to opt out where I can, but I have no illusions.)

Again, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care who has the data or how it’s used; and I know this is the cogent point for many in this thread. My point is simply that one shouldn’t get sidetracked by the tools themselves. Focus on the only realistic solution: that being laws that define how collected data can be used, shared, etc. It’s an imperfect solution, but the problem isn’t going to go way for lack of a perfect solution.

The market forces that bear upon the toy industry do not apply to universal education. If an individual toy company fails, the impact on society is negligible; not so with the national educational system. I made the comparison to emphasis our social value system.

My original point was that proper funding is a necessary condition for a quality educational system, though it is not sufficient. In other words there are reasons our educational system is failing aside from funding, but the answer is not to cease funding the educational system properly.

This is somewhat of a tangent from that point, but since the market comparison has been made, I feel it is important to emphasis the need for public funding of the primary educational system. It is in the public interest to have an educated citizenry, and it is incumbent upon all citizens to both fund the educational system and have a stake in its efficacy. Markets are not well suited to provide a quality universal education system. Markets are excellent at providing quality private schools that augment the base educational system because individuals have a clear and direct incentive to fund the education of kin (kin used here in the broader anthropological sense which exceeds blood relations). There isn’t as clear an incentive to fund the education of perfect strangers. The educational level of perfect strangers, however, is a kind of externality: the educational level of perfect strangers directly impacts the prosperity of the larger society. Moreover, the children who generally need the most educational resources come from families that have the least ability to fund their children’s education.

That isn’t to say that market concepts like incentives, competition, etc. aren’t important in the educational system, but they have to applied in the framework of a publicly funded, universal educational system. Educators should compete for incentives commensurate with the social gravitas of their role. That’s where I got into the point about shared social values; our society underestimates the gravitas of public education when it comes down to things like funding. Educators should be more respected and better compensated, thus incentivizing competent individuals to excel in the service of public education. It’s kind of naive to expect enough educators to excel purely out of a passion to educate (though that shouldn’t be underestimated either).

Awesome; I commit several typos in a post on education.