3 ms·
Thanks for posting this! I read it a while back and lost the link. The part that's stayed with me the most about this story is the following: "...imagine disc
by zacharypinter 17y ago
Thanks for posting this! I read it a while back and lost the link.
The part that's stayed with me the most about this story is the following:
"...imagine discovering a secret thought or program, accessible to any intelligent individual, which, if abused, will eliminate your species instantly."
"Each and every individual in such a species must eventually become capable of destroying their entire species at any time. Yet they must learn to control themselves to the degree that they can survive even such deadly insight."
What a great thought. How would our species survive if any one of us had the ability to destroy all of us. I think of this in the context of the internet. I'm strongly of the opinion that the internet should not be censored or restricted in any way. However, what if there was a way to make the equivalent of a Nuclear Bomb with low-cost, easily available materials? How would the internet handle that knowledge? What would it do to society?
- callahad 17y agoThe simplest way would be to relinquish free will.
- ntoshev 17y agoEvolution halts at the point where a single individual dooms the entire population. It cannot work with a step fitness function, with no margin for error. And by evolution I mean the abstract understanding for evolution that we have, which is the core of the genetic algorithms (not just biological evolution, nor some abstract "a population getting better in something"). I think we are encountering the problem at different scale at first: some countries can destroy the entire species, then more and more countries do, then it would become possible for some large or committed enough organizations. We are learning to cope along the way, and the approach so far is to keep knowledge under covers, and not to give such powers lightly.