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When Bostrom and others talk about humanity, they usually mean humanity and its extremely advanced descendants. They expect some value drift. Robin Hanson puts

by ggreer 13y ago

When Bostrom and others talk about humanity, they usually mean humanity and its extremely advanced descendants. They expect some value drift. Robin Hanson puts it rather succinctly in http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/12/steps-up-the-ladder.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/12/steps-up-the-ladder.ht...: Of course we should also wonder what we may become as we rise. We are no longer the foragers who began this climb, nor the farmers who climbed just a few floors below, and those ancestors would probably not be pleased with everything we have become. We’ll probably also have misgivings about what our descendants become. But hopefully we will on net be proud of them, just as our ancestors would probably be proud of us.

sdrothrock 13y ago
Thank you for the clarification!
lutusp 13y ago
Okay, hold on a minute. When you say, "humanity and its extremely advanced descendants", when you link to an article containing the phrase "steps up the ladder", when you quote someone saying, "we should also wonder what we may become as we rise" [emphasis added], you're overlooking something basic about evolutionary theory that everyone needs to understand. And that is that evolution is not necessarily a progression from less to more advanced, from less intelligent to more intelligent, or for that matter, from less anything to more anything. Evolution is not a plan with a goal, it is a blind algorithm that chooses survivors, regardless of the survivors' traits, with the single requirement that they are the fittest for the environment in which they find themselves. This talk about steps up the ladder and extremely advanced descendants is scientifically ignorant and a New Age fantasy. We are as likely to be replaced by cockroaches as by superbeings.
- ggreer 13y ago
  1. I was explaining the position of Bostrom, Hanson, and others. I do not completely agree with them. 2. I think you have misinterpreted their position. Bostrom and Hanson know quite a bit about evolution. They know that evolution is undirected and would eventually result in an organism we wouldn't recognize, let alone value. But they both think that we are entering a time in which we will no longer be bound by evolution. They think that humanity will soon be able to engineer minds, allowing us to improve their raw abilities while having them retain many of our own values. On this point, I do agree with them. Evolution hill-climbs, so it gets stuck in local maxima and can't search the entire solution space. We're already building lots of stuff that could never evolve: radio, wheels, impellers, turbines, lasers, etc. In billions of years, evolution hasn't figured out a way to send signals faster than 0.000001c (300m/sec). That's how fast sound waves and nerve signals travel. As optimization processes go, it really is quite terrible. If we want to make better minds in any reasonable time-frame, we'll need to engineer them ourselves.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > I think you have misinterpreted their position. I understand it perfectly -- they're either as ignorant as their followers, or they're exploiting public ignorance. > Bostrom and Hanson know quite a bit about evolution. They either know nothing about evolution, or they're deliberately misleading their readers. Contrary to their writing, natural selection is not a race to the top, because it's not a race to any particular objective. > But they both think that we are entering a time in which we no longer be bound by evolution. Apart from revealing their inability to grasp evolutionary theory, this is an ignorant New Age fantasy. We will always be bound by natural selection, even when we actively participate in the process. > They think that humanity will soon be able to engineer minds, allowing us to improve their raw abilities while having them retain many of our own values. But that's also evolution. To argue that people meddling with genetics isn't evolution is to misunderstand evolution's scope. > Evolution hill-climbs ... You really need to stop thinking about natural selection as though it's a race to the top of the hill. This idea contradicts both evolutionary theory and copious observational evidence. > We're already building lots of stuff that could never evolve [emphasis added]: radio, wheels, impellers, turbines, lasers, etc. All these things exist in nature, even including the lasers, all of which evolved in nature: http://laserstars.org/summary.html http://laserstars.org/summary.html Bacteria use wheel- and axle-based electric motors to propel themselves through their environments: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22489/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22489/ All your examples have similar pre-existing embodiments in nature. And they all evolved. > If we want to make better minds in any reasonable time-frame, we'll need to engineer them ourselves. People doing engineering is an example of natural selection. There is nothing in the sequence of human events that isn't an example of evolution by natural selection. All this talk about moving beyond evolution fails to grasp how evolution works in our lives. Even A/B testing of Web pages is an example of natural selection. To summarize, these people you're quoting are simply pandering to low public taste -- they're either broadcasting their own ignorance or exploiting the ignorance of the public. Evolution doesn't work they way they claim, and their writing is a scientific laughingstock.
    - ggreer 13y ago
      I don't have time to address everything you've laid out here, but I must say that you seem to almost willfully misinterpret my statements. Moreover, many of your rebuttals are simply incorrect on matters of fact. Please, in the future, try to remember the principle of charity. Also, you might foster more productive discussions by sprinkling a little tact onto your comments.
- kamaal 13y ago
  >>Evolution is not a plan with a goal, it is a blind algorithm that chooses survivors, regardless of the survivors' traits, with the single requirement that they are the fittest for the environment in which they find themselves. Well that does sound like a goal driven algorithm to me. Except that you can't actually say if a move made by the algorithm will actually produce a acceptable outcome to the algorithm itself. Due to the sheer number of variables, the only option the algorithm has is to do a kind of A/B testing. To make changes to a smaller subset of subjects and see if they survive, if they do they do. If they don't, well then you can kill that test and move on more modifications. Evolution is an optimization algorithm, which makes changes, tests and makes more changes/corrects based on feed back.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    >> Evolution is not a plan with a goal, it is a blind algorithm that chooses survivors, regardless of the survivors' traits, with the single requirement that they are the fittest for the environment in which they find themselves. > Well that does sound like a goal driven algorithm to me. Not in the way most people mean. When people hear there's a scheme to evolution, many assume this means a gradual ascent in complexity or intelligence, but that's not necessarily so. There's no relationship between natural selection and any specific endpoint. > Evolution is an optimization algorithm ... No, it's an adaptation algorithm. Its outcome are never optimal, only the best approximate response to environmental changes, in an ever-changing environment.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  1) That's not entirely true. Evolution is an optimization process and tends to produce more fit individuals over time. Intelligence is a great example of a trait that improved over time because of evolution. 2) No one is claiming that in the first place. The quote is about the evolution of culture and technology, not biological evolution.

by ggreer 13y ago

sdrothrock 13y ago

Thank you for the clarification!

lutusp 13y ago

Okay, hold on a minute. When you say, "humanity and its extremely advanced descendants", when you link to an article containing the phrase "steps up the ladder", when you quote someone saying, "we should also wonder what we may become as we rise" [emphasis added], you're overlooking something basic about evolutionary theory that everyone needs to understand. And that is that evolution is not necessarily a progression from less to more advanced, from less intelligent to more intelligent, or for that matter, from less anything to more anything. Evolution is not a plan with a goal, it is a blind algorithm that chooses survivors, regardless of the survivors' traits, with the single requirement that they are the fittest for the environment in which they find themselves. This talk about steps up the ladder and extremely advanced descendants is scientifically ignorant and a New Age fantasy. We are as likely to be replaced by cockroaches as by superbeings.

ggreer 13y ago
1. I was explaining the position of Bostrom, Hanson, and others. I do not completely agree with them. 2. I think you have misinterpreted their position. Bostrom and Hanson know quite a bit about evolution. They know that evolution is undirected and would eventually result in an organism we wouldn't recognize, let alone value. But they both think that we are entering a time in which we will no longer be bound by evolution. They think that humanity will soon be able to engineer minds, allowing us to improve their raw abilities while having them retain many of our own values. On this point, I do agree with them. Evolution hill-climbs, so it gets stuck in local maxima and can't search the entire solution space. We're already building lots of stuff that could never evolve: radio, wheels, impellers, turbines, lasers, etc. In billions of years, evolution hasn't figured out a way to send signals faster than 0.000001c (300m/sec). That's how fast sound waves and nerve signals travel. As optimization processes go, it really is quite terrible. If we want to make better minds in any reasonable time-frame, we'll need to engineer them ourselves.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > I think you have misinterpreted their position. I understand it perfectly -- they're either as ignorant as their followers, or they're exploiting public ignorance. > Bostrom and Hanson know quite a bit about evolution. They either know nothing about evolution, or they're deliberately misleading their readers. Contrary to their writing, natural selection is not a race to the top, because it's not a race to any particular objective. > But they both think that we are entering a time in which we no longer be bound by evolution. Apart from revealing their inability to grasp evolutionary theory, this is an ignorant New Age fantasy. We will always be bound by natural selection, even when we actively participate in the process. > They think that humanity will soon be able to engineer minds, allowing us to improve their raw abilities while having them retain many of our own values. But that's also evolution. To argue that people meddling with genetics isn't evolution is to misunderstand evolution's scope. > Evolution hill-climbs ... You really need to stop thinking about natural selection as though it's a race to the top of the hill. This idea contradicts both evolutionary theory and copious observational evidence. > We're already building lots of stuff that could never evolve [emphasis added]: radio, wheels, impellers, turbines, lasers, etc. All these things exist in nature, even including the lasers, all of which evolved in nature: http://laserstars.org/summary.html http://laserstars.org/summary.html Bacteria use wheel- and axle-based electric motors to propel themselves through their environments: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22489/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22489/ All your examples have similar pre-existing embodiments in nature. And they all evolved. > If we want to make better minds in any reasonable time-frame, we'll need to engineer them ourselves. People doing engineering is an example of natural selection. There is nothing in the sequence of human events that isn't an example of evolution by natural selection. All this talk about moving beyond evolution fails to grasp how evolution works in our lives. Even A/B testing of Web pages is an example of natural selection. To summarize, these people you're quoting are simply pandering to low public taste -- they're either broadcasting their own ignorance or exploiting the ignorance of the public. Evolution doesn't work they way they claim, and their writing is a scientific laughingstock.
  - ggreer 13y ago
    I don't have time to address everything you've laid out here, but I must say that you seem to almost willfully misinterpret my statements. Moreover, many of your rebuttals are simply incorrect on matters of fact. Please, in the future, try to remember the principle of charity. Also, you might foster more productive discussions by sprinkling a little tact onto your comments.
kamaal 13y ago
>>Evolution is not a plan with a goal, it is a blind algorithm that chooses survivors, regardless of the survivors' traits, with the single requirement that they are the fittest for the environment in which they find themselves. Well that does sound like a goal driven algorithm to me. Except that you can't actually say if a move made by the algorithm will actually produce a acceptable outcome to the algorithm itself. Due to the sheer number of variables, the only option the algorithm has is to do a kind of A/B testing. To make changes to a smaller subset of subjects and see if they survive, if they do they do. If they don't, well then you can kill that test and move on more modifications. Evolution is an optimization algorithm, which makes changes, tests and makes more changes/corrects based on feed back.
- lutusp 13y ago
  >> Evolution is not a plan with a goal, it is a blind algorithm that chooses survivors, regardless of the survivors' traits, with the single requirement that they are the fittest for the environment in which they find themselves. > Well that does sound like a goal driven algorithm to me. Not in the way most people mean. When people hear there's a scheme to evolution, many assume this means a gradual ascent in complexity or intelligence, but that's not necessarily so. There's no relationship between natural selection and any specific endpoint. > Evolution is an optimization algorithm ... No, it's an adaptation algorithm. Its outcome are never optimal, only the best approximate response to environmental changes, in an ever-changing environment.
Houshalter 13y ago
1) That's not entirely true. Evolution is an optimization process and tends to produce more fit individuals over time. Intelligence is a great example of a trait that improved over time because of evolution. 2) No one is claiming that in the first place. The quote is about the evolution of culture and technology, not biological evolution.