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You seem very confused about what "Singularity" denotes. You also seem to be confusing "the only way with current technology" with "the only way, ever". You a

by endtime 14y ago

You seem very confused about what "Singularity" denotes. You also seem to be confusing "the only way with current technology" with "the only way, ever". You also seem to be claiming that highly intelligent AI couldn't solve the upload problem. And that it would necessarily be hostile - this is likely if we were to sample randomly from mind-space, but hopefully we will be careful about which highly intelligent AIs we create...

polyfractal 14y ago
Well first, I'll quote myself: > I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's so far from likely that being near-immortal due to bio-enhancements is almost certainly more practical. Or you can develop some "scanning ray gun" which does the same thing without killing you first, I suppose. Seriously, I see near-immortality due to bio-engineering to be way more likely in the remote future (next few hundred years) than uploading your brain. Similarly, I see strong, general AI to be way more likely. I'll even say that I see full, human brain simulations to be way more likely than the ability to upload your own into the net. I'm all for being hopeful and optimistic, but sometimes physics is just not on your side.
- mongol 14y ago
  Uploading the brain is not the one and only thing implied with singularity, according to Kurzweil. Near-immortality and general strong AI is also in line with it. The one main point is that when AI / technology gets good enough, it takes off and leaves normal brain intelligence behind. Everything else is speculation.
  - mcguire 14y ago
    "The one main point is that when AI / technology gets good enough, it takes off and leaves normal brain intelligence behind." That is actually a very strong assumption.
- lukifer 14y ago
  If you described the way modern internet works to an engineer 100 years ago, they'd pull their hair out too trying to understand such a system using the technology of their day. For brain uploading, my money is on pure algorithms. Throw a lifetime of data on top of base human emulation software, possibly influenced by known genetic data, and then iterate through an insane number of possible brains using an insane quantity of CPU until you get a virtual brain that most closely matches up with the provided data. It'll be at best a crude approximation of the original human, but just like with MP3s, nobody will really care as long as their departed loved one feels like the same person. The "singularity" is just a mathematical abstraction, as with dark energy or string theory. The math is highly likely to describe a real phenomenon, but anyone extrapolating further detail based on that math is basically just guessing.
  - doomlaser 14y ago
    Similarly, if you were to ask an engineer 100 years ago to predict the changes in technology that would shape the future, he would be completely off track as well. This is another reason Singularity pushes seem so out.
- lotyrin 14y ago
  I'm just hopping in to recommend "Saturn's Children" by Stross, which this comment has reminded me of. AI are created by building immortal human brain simulations, raising them, then cloning the results. Humans are not able to upload and eventually go extinct.
thwest 14y ago
You seem to be claiming that intelligence can overcome fundamental limits of physics and signal processing.
- endtime 14y ago
  Not intentionally...can you unpack that a bit?
  - thwest 14y ago
    > claiming that highly intelligent AI couldn't solve the upload problem. Solving the upload problem possibly requires imaging / scanning at a level of detail that might be outside what is possible within the constraints of physics. If it turns out we need atomic level information for the whole body, the project might be hosed from the beginning, something that better ideas or more thinking can't overcome.
    - endtime 14y ago
      So because solving a problem might require something that might be outside the constraints of physics, I'm implying that solving that problem requires violating physics? That doesn't make sense. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you implying that a neuron/synapse-level scan might not be sufficient?
philwelch 14y ago
Positing "highly intelligent AI" as a solution to brain uploading basically says "you know that implausible bit of science fiction, let's solve it with another implausible bit of science fiction". Until you can demonstrate the plausibility of super-AI, you can't propose it as a solution to a similarly implausible problem.
- endtime 14y ago
  Why is it implausible?
  - philwelch 14y ago
    "Implausible" might be the wrong word--my point is, you can't say some fantastic future technology we have no idea how to build is possible by saying it'll be enabled by another fantastic future technology we have no idea how to build, because that doesn't really get you any closer to the solution.

by endtime 14y ago

polyfractal 14y ago

Well first, I'll quote myself: > I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying it's so far from likely that being near-immortal due to bio-enhancements is almost certainly more practical. Or you can develop some "scanning ray gun" which does the same thing without killing you first, I suppose. Seriously, I see near-immortality due to bio-engineering to be way more likely in the remote future (next few hundred years) than uploading your brain. Similarly, I see strong, general AI to be way more likely. I'll even say that I see full, human brain simulations to be way more likely than the ability to upload your own into the net. I'm all for being hopeful and optimistic, but sometimes physics is just not on your side.

mongol 14y ago
Uploading the brain is not the one and only thing implied with singularity, according to Kurzweil. Near-immortality and general strong AI is also in line with it. The one main point is that when AI / technology gets good enough, it takes off and leaves normal brain intelligence behind. Everything else is speculation.
- mcguire 14y ago
  "The one main point is that when AI / technology gets good enough, it takes off and leaves normal brain intelligence behind." That is actually a very strong assumption.
lukifer 14y ago
If you described the way modern internet works to an engineer 100 years ago, they'd pull their hair out too trying to understand such a system using the technology of their day. For brain uploading, my money is on pure algorithms. Throw a lifetime of data on top of base human emulation software, possibly influenced by known genetic data, and then iterate through an insane number of possible brains using an insane quantity of CPU until you get a virtual brain that most closely matches up with the provided data. It'll be at best a crude approximation of the original human, but just like with MP3s, nobody will really care as long as their departed loved one feels like the same person. The "singularity" is just a mathematical abstraction, as with dark energy or string theory. The math is highly likely to describe a real phenomenon, but anyone extrapolating further detail based on that math is basically just guessing.
- doomlaser 14y ago
  Similarly, if you were to ask an engineer 100 years ago to predict the changes in technology that would shape the future, he would be completely off track as well. This is another reason Singularity pushes seem so out.
lotyrin 14y ago
I'm just hopping in to recommend "Saturn's Children" by Stross, which this comment has reminded me of. AI are created by building immortal human brain simulations, raising them, then cloning the results. Humans are not able to upload and eventually go extinct.

thwest 14y ago

You seem to be claiming that intelligence can overcome fundamental limits of physics and signal processing.

endtime 14y ago
Not intentionally...can you unpack that a bit?
- thwest 14y ago
  > claiming that highly intelligent AI couldn't solve the upload problem. Solving the upload problem possibly requires imaging / scanning at a level of detail that might be outside what is possible within the constraints of physics. If it turns out we need atomic level information for the whole body, the project might be hosed from the beginning, something that better ideas or more thinking can't overcome.
  - endtime 14y ago
    So because solving a problem might require something that might be outside the constraints of physics, I'm implying that solving that problem requires violating physics? That doesn't make sense. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you implying that a neuron/synapse-level scan might not be sufficient?

philwelch 14y ago

Positing "highly intelligent AI" as a solution to brain uploading basically says "you know that implausible bit of science fiction, let's solve it with another implausible bit of science fiction". Until you can demonstrate the plausibility of super-AI, you can't propose it as a solution to a similarly implausible problem.

endtime 14y ago
Why is it implausible?
- philwelch 14y ago
  "Implausible" might be the wrong word--my point is, you can't say some fantastic future technology we have no idea how to build is possible by saying it'll be enabled by another fantastic future technology we have no idea how to build, because that doesn't really get you any closer to the solution.