Accelerate the future Re: ... Fear of the future ...

[Brian Atkins]

John Hall wrote:
> 
> > How do you
> > think we should handle this increasingly important issue?
> 
> I don't think it is that important, actually.

The future path of humanity is not that important. OK... let's just be
another statistic for the Fermi Paradox :-/

> 
> Accept the things you can't change, because I don't think you can change
> that one.

Well I disagree. Technology has changed history throughout the last
century, and it will continue to do so in this one, except even more
rapidly. If you can perfect a powerful new technology such as real AI,
that effectively changes the whole game.

> 
> I also think that most of the people who 'get there first' aren't
> suicidal.  I'd be more worried about an accident than about intentional
> sabotage.

I'm worried about accidents too. Personally I'd like to get a nice
friendly AI on my side before people go experimenting too much with
nanotechnology.

> 
> > Check out our Creating Friendly AI
> > work, also some stuff of ours on the kurzweilai.net site.
> 
> Well, I just hope they figure out how to upload me before the biological
> husk breaks down.

Well perhaps you should do more than hope? Technology is here and
available now, let's do something with it, speed up the Singularity,
and save a lot of needless deaths. If uploading technology arrives just
one year earlier than it might otherwise if you sat on your butt, then
that is potentially saving something like 150000 x 365 lives.
-- 
Brian Atkins
Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/