4 ms·

All this (awful) article shows is that there's a big need for 'singularitarians' to do a better job of communicating to the wider community.

by jey 18y ago

gruseom 18y ago
This is an emotional reaction that comes up frequently. Arguments are answered with "but that's not at all what we said, you just don't understand". (I don't mean "emotional" as a criticism, though I realize it probably sounds that way.) The problem is that it's a moving target. For example, the objection that "exponential advances in hardware are not matched by exponential advances in software, so extrapolation from the former doesn't apply to the latter," is met with something like, "You are uninformed if you think The Singularity has to do with extrapolation from Moore's Law. That's a common misunderstanding." One wonders how the misunderstanding got so common if that's not what the advocates said! Anyway, this moving-targetness is to me an indicator of religious attachment to a concept.
- jey 18y ago
  I stopped arguing for this stuff in online forums because it's not the most effective way to communicate it to a lot of people. Instead I'm working on writing up stuff that can be useful to a wider audience (instead of the few dozen people who would read this comment.) I'll submit it here when I eventually finish writing it up. Secondly, there's a lot of fractured mutually incompatible thought that goes under the banner of "Singularity". There's a lot of people who do think it has to do with some sort of intersecting exponential curves (this is the Kurzweil school of thought). See this link for an overview of the three mutually exclusive camps, as told by Eliezer Yudkowsky: http://www.singinst.org/blog/2007/09/30/three-major-singularity-schools/ http://www.singinst.org/blog/2007/09/30/three-major-singular... "One wonders how the misunderstanding got so common if that's not what the advocates said!" There is no "the advocates", because "Singularitarianism" isn't a single movement. The fact that it's fractured only indicates that there's three (or more) different camps -- these are different people saying different things, not the same people acting as a 'moving target'. I don't see how that makes it a religion. And you're right that there's a decent chunk of people who are dreaming of utopia and bliss and do take a Sci-Fi sort of attitude toward it -- but there are good scientific reasons to work on these issues, and good reasons to be worried about the implications. For what it's worth, my claim basically comes down to two things: 1) AI is feasible. 2) There will be profound changes when AI appears on the scene. And we need to worry about the big issues relating to this. I hate the term 'singularity'. It's too associated with Kurzweil's take on things, and it evokes connotations of a 'hard takeoff'. I prefer to just talk about AI's importance, feasibility, implications, and dangers.

All this (awful) article shows is that there's a big need for 'singularitarians' to do a better job of communicating to the wider community.

by jey 18y ago

All this (awful) article shows is that there's a big need for 'singularitarians' to do a better job of communicating to the wider community.

gruseom 18y ago

This is an emotional reaction that comes up frequently. Arguments are answered with "but that's not at all what we said, you just don't understand". (I don't mean "emotional" as a criticism, though I realize it probably sounds that way.) The problem is that it's a moving target. For example, the objection that "exponential advances in hardware are not matched by exponential advances in software, so extrapolation from the former doesn't apply to the latter," is met with something like, "You are uninformed if you think The Singularity has to do with extrapolation from Moore's Law. That's a common misunderstanding." One wonders how the misunderstanding got so common if that's not what the advocates said! Anyway, this moving-targetness is to me an indicator of religious attachment to a concept.

jey 18y ago
I stopped arguing for this stuff in online forums because it's not the most effective way to communicate it to a lot of people. Instead I'm working on writing up stuff that can be useful to a wider audience (instead of the few dozen people who would read this comment.) I'll submit it here when I eventually finish writing it up. Secondly, there's a lot of fractured mutually incompatible thought that goes under the banner of "Singularity". There's a lot of people who do think it has to do with some sort of intersecting exponential curves (this is the Kurzweil school of thought). See this link for an overview of the three mutually exclusive camps, as told by Eliezer Yudkowsky: http://www.singinst.org/blog/2007/09/30/three-major-singularity-schools/ http://www.singinst.org/blog/2007/09/30/three-major-singular... "One wonders how the misunderstanding got so common if that's not what the advocates said!" There is no "the advocates", because "Singularitarianism" isn't a single movement. The fact that it's fractured only indicates that there's three (or more) different camps -- these are different people saying different things, not the same people acting as a 'moving target'. I don't see how that makes it a religion. And you're right that there's a decent chunk of people who are dreaming of utopia and bliss and do take a Sci-Fi sort of attitude toward it -- but there are good scientific reasons to work on these issues, and good reasons to be worried about the implications. For what it's worth, my claim basically comes down to two things: 1) AI is feasible. 2) There will be profound changes when AI appears on the scene. And we need to worry about the big issues relating to this. I hate the term 'singularity'. It's too associated with Kurzweil's take on things, and it evokes connotations of a 'hard takeoff'. I prefer to just talk about AI's importance, feasibility, implications, and dangers.