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Want something scary? The form of reasoning used is exactly that in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_
by btilly 6y ago
Want something scary?
The form of reasoning used is exactly that in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument for why humanity is unlikely to last long, and almost certainly will not have a future where we break out and colonize most of the Solar System, let alone the stars.
If you believe both arguments, the most likely outcome is that there is one more step on the way to Robin's argument. And that outcome is the replacement of biological intelligence with mechanical. So indeed we give rise to an expanding wave of technological civilization. But we are close to peak population and will not ourselves see that civilization.
All hail our future AI overlords!
- bob33212 6y agoWe are within 500 years of creating millions of self sustaining spaceports. We are within 500 years of AGI. We are within 500 years of understanding quantum gravity. We are within 500 years of fixing biological death. The order we get to those and how they interplay and change the world matters so much that it doesn't make sense to worry about making predictions.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoYou state these "we are within 500 years" as if they are certainties, but you show no evidence for any of them. The only one I consider even slightly likely is that we are within 500 years of understanding quantum gravity. So... evidence? Argument? Just stating baldly that it is so is not very convincing.
- bob33212 6y agoI don't have a time machine so no I cannot prove what will happen in the future
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoFine, but you seem to regard it as at least virtually certain. Why? What is your basis for regarding it as close to certain?
- bob33212 6y agohttps://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revol...
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoI've seen that article. I don't find it convincing. Start with the first screen: An exponential graph does not have a sharp kink in it just past where you are standing. The rest of the point is valid (an exponential curve means that the next bit if change will be faster than the last bit, and that's going to surprise you), but he's cheating to try to make the point more visually dramatic. It implies "there's a discontinuous first derivative coming almost immediately", when the argument is actually that there's a continuous increase in the first derivative. So, yeah. Overselling the case, in the graph on the first screen.
- uxcolumbo 6y agoWhat about the climate crisis halting or slowing down technological progress?
- bob33212 6y agoClimate change is not a big deal as far as innovation goes. It is an enormous disaster for specific cities though
- ncmncm 6y agoOnly if civilization doesn't collapse. But there is no reason to expect better. All the signs point there. Global climate disruption destroys crop yields in tropical and subtropical places, creating political instability. Millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions of refugees flee toward higher latitudes. Nations at higher latitudes elect fascists to repel them. Fascists start wars, wars disrupt trade, economies collapse, nuclear weapons come out, boom. It would be nice to be wrong about this, but it has all started already. 70M+ Americans voted for fascism. Brazil, Turkey, Hungary, India already got it. Germany, France, UK, Italy, Poland threaten. China and Russia fell long ago. Europe is already strained by the first few million refugees. Sending the hundreds of millions of refugees on to Siberia and the Yukon could work, in principle.
- loopz 6y agoClimate instability would unlock changes that one by one cause feedback to worsen the situation irreversibly. The bio diversity that prevents this, we actively destroy every day.
- sangnoir 6y agoOr if we find out that micro-plastics lead to a marked increased cancer rates, resulting in a precipitous drop in life expectancy.
- dsr_ 6y agoIt's just as likely that we all greet our future AI grandchildren, as they will be us.