Comment Re:Ai is inevitable (Score 1) 339
We already have a lot of "AI" hidden all around us. Just look at what google can do with a few keywords and ask yourself how much better a person could do with "real" intelligence.
What the Singularity people never seem to think about is natural limiting factors. It's the same problem the Grey Goo handwringers rarely consider. The idea that an AI would grow exponentially smarter just because it was a machine never really worked for me. It's going to run into the same limiting factors (access to information, available compute time, thermodynamics!) that prevent biological organisms from running unchecked. The Grey Goo scenario is especially bad, since we already have a real world analoge (bacteria, and other microorganisms) that have completely failed to transmute the entire mass of the planet, despite having billions of years to try. Anytime someone tells you to worry about Grey Goo, make sure you ask them what is going to power all of those nanomachines. Anytime someone tells you to worry about the AI Singularity, ask them where all of the knowledge is coming from.
What the Singularity people never seem to think about is natural limiting factors. It's the same problem the Grey Goo handwringers rarely consider. The idea that an AI would grow exponentially smarter just because it was a machine never really worked for me. It's going to run into the same limiting factors (access to information, available compute time, thermodynamics!) that prevent biological organisms from running unchecked. The Grey Goo scenario is especially bad, since we already have a real world analoge (bacteria, and other microorganisms) that have completely failed to transmute the entire mass of the planet, despite having billions of years to try. Anytime someone tells you to worry about Grey Goo, make sure you ask them what is going to power all of those nanomachines. Anytime someone tells you to worry about the AI Singularity, ask them where all of the knowledge is coming from.