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Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

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Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#41

Post by philipkglass »

narrator wrote: post #39
philipkglass wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was involved with a research effort to predict certain cell biology features via molecular dynamics simulations between 2003 and 2006. It's what I wrote my thesis on. After school was done and my research group's grant ran out I started writing software for a living instead of looking for another research position. I still keep up with molecular and biological simulation research efforts because it's intrinsically…

This has been my main objection to brain inside of a computer thinking. If we could simulate the universe inside of a computer we could do all kinds of neat things, such as drug development in a computer, but it isn't algorithmically possible. The Kurzweillians are just assuming that we'll wave the magic wand and have efficient algorithms for everything such that computer simulation of reality will be trivial. If you…

I don't want to rule out better algorithms developing very good approximations for what currently appear to be daunting problems like protein folding. But there are a lot of problems like folding out there where even a century of Moore's Law marching on wouldn't be enough to solve large instances with today's algorithms. And Moore's Law looks like it's going to do more shuffling forward than marching forward in the future.

So basically I agree with you: there's no generic march-of-progress that assures a world of Kurzweillian wonders. I want to see more concrete evidence of progress in relevant areas before I start entertaining life after the Singularity. (I expect a future profoundly shaped by many "narrow" AIs rather than AGI precisely because there has been so much concrete progress with the former compared to the latter.)

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#42

Post by andrewflnr »

Paul_S wrote: post #25

The Age of Em can be read in two ways. One is to treat it like an RPG setting book. An imaginative world with highly detailed descriptions, complete with cool potential plots for your campaign. The second way to read it is as a book trying to predict the future in much the same way as The Flintstones is recording history. Everything is strange yet it's all mimicking the current world with superficial differences. The…

Speaking of fiction, it sounds a lot like The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, more in the "forking your mind repeatedly" respect than the 2mm robots, though the tiny people are there, too. Reading this article shortly after The Quantum Thief was actually a bit uncanny.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#43

Post by bcgraham »

philipkglass wrote: post #20

The book’s premise is that in about a century, it will be possible to scan human brains at "fine enough spatial and chemical resolution," and to combine that with good-enough models of signal-processing functions of brain cells, "to create a cell-by-cell dynamically executable model of the full brain in artificial hardware, a model whose signal input-output behavior is usefully close to that of the original brain." L…

He talks about the time estimate in the book. He says he understood the need for a time estimate, and so gives the one he thinks is best. But the important thing is that he feels confident it will happen before artificial intelligence that isn't full-brain emulation, whether that's in one century or four centuries.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#44

Post by davidgerard »

arthurjj wrote: post #26
philipkglass wrote: post #20

The book’s premise is that in about a century, it will be possible to scan human brains at "fine enough spatial and chemical resolution," and to combine that with good-enough models of signal-processing functions of brain cells, "to create a cell-by-cell dynamically executable model of the full brain in artificial hardware, a model whose signal input-output behavior is usefully close to that of the original brain." L…

He's stated elsewhere he thinks the chances of this scenario are only ~30% IIRC

Based on what, though? The hazard of dealing with Bayesian epistemologists is that they will confidently state percentages that they literally made up.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#45

Post by davidgerard »

JETSON, Bay Area, the future (H Minus) — Scientists, or self-taught philosophers who’ve heard of science anyway, predict a dazzling future for humanity — in which our computer-augmented future selves, in a world of endless plenty, keep being shits to each other.

An advanced computer-managed economy will do all the jobs, building our homes, 3D-printing our iPhones and nano-assembling our food. Wanting for nothing, people will at last be free to assert their essential humanity and complain bitterly about everything.

Genetic engineering will give us new bodies and an indefinite lifespan. Whole-brain emulation will let those who would have died go on as personalities living in computers. In the future, fuckwits will be with you forever.

We will live in fabulously diverse harmony and break the cycle of every new technology first being used to murder each other. This will include those thoroughly deserving of murder, particularly the endless identical instances of irritating hippie emulations blathering about cosmic oneness.

Cryogenically-preserved humans from the twenty-first century will have their frozen brains read by nanobots so their personalities can be run as programs. To avoid future shock, they will be put to work in a computer-simulated office job, and be reset each morning. For comfort and familiarity, each person-emulation will be given a helpful companion program, called “Clippy.”

A benevolent artificial superintelligence will run the world, for the good of all humanity. To maximise utilitarian value across the quantum wave function of the universe, “Roko’s femilisk” will regrettably have to punish emulations of those who complained that they found Tumblr social justice warriors’ intolerance of intolerance “triggering.” Please donate to help achieve this.

Given the opportunity for a world of unlimited creative freedom and enjoyment, we can be certain that humanity will not rest until it has turned this infinitely bountiful paradise into something even pissier than modern-day capitalism.

The Singularity will elevate the human condition to nasty, brutish and long. An emulation of Thomas Hobbes will, however, buy that for a bitcoin.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#46

Post by freshhawk »

Paul_S wrote: post #25

The Age of Em can be read in two ways. One is to treat it like an RPG setting book. An imaginative world with highly detailed descriptions, complete with cool potential plots for your campaign. The second way to read it is as a book trying to predict the future in much the same way as The Flintstones is recording history. Everything is strange yet it's all mimicking the current world with superficial differences. The…

"...economists often predict the future correctly but the irrational..."

This is the Overcoming Bias/Less Wrong community worldview basically, and I find your RPG setting reading works well for understanding them as well. From now on I'll think of them as writers who are predicting the future of an alternate universe where humans think fundamentally differently than in our reality.

It's a hell of a lot of fun, if you model homo economicus instead of homo sapiens it actually is possible to reason about large societies and at least attempt to predict far future outcomes to some degree. Plenty of ways to hand wave away the reasons that you can't "predict" historical events or the present with these models, that's boring anyway, the future has cooler toys.

If you accept that a chaotic soup of memes can, at any time, combine to form an idea that becomes a popular ideology that prompts a bunch of clever apes to act anywhere from irrational to completely insane for arbitrary amounts of time ... well that's impossible to model in any meaningful way.

The aversion to history makes a lot of sense, my own interest in history and sociology is what showed me the holes in this worldview and now I can't play this fun game with the same immersion they do.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#47

Post by mmusson »

philipkglass wrote: post #20

The book’s premise is that in about a century, it will be possible to scan human brains at "fine enough spatial and chemical resolution," and to combine that with good-enough models of signal-processing functions of brain cells, "to create a cell-by-cell dynamically executable model of the full brain in artificial hardware, a model whose signal input-output behavior is usefully close to that of the original brain." L…

I think you are missing the main thrust of the book. He is not trying to convince you that em-based AI is the likely future. He chose the less examined possibility as a starting point, but the main part of the book is to enumerate the predictions that flow from that premise.

This is interesting and worth examining even if the premise is wrong. Sometimes examining a familiar topic in unfamiliar terrain yields new insights.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#48

Post by cmrdporcupine »

Let all of these people 'transcend' their minds into computers, I will go the other way, and go immanently into my body.

"Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage—it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy body." -- Nietzsche

http://www.philosophy-index.com/nietzsche/thus-spake-zarathu...

Or Deleuze summarizing him: As Nietzsche would say, we stand amazed before consciousness but the truly suprising thing is the body.

To feel a raindrop on the skin, to look out on a surprising sunrise, to lie on one's back in the grass at dusk while bats fly overhead. I would not want to live 1000 years without this. I'd rather the lights go out and have it all end and gone forever than live only in a simulation, to no longer feel the randomness, the intricacy, the depth, the richness of what is happening now.

You're welcome to all the virtual you want. But no thanks.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#49

Post by internaut »

mentos wrote: post #3

Anyone that hasn't yet, check out Black Mirror on Netflix. It has a lot of ideas in it that I am surprised to see in a show in 2016. I love Elon Musk but I think he is solving the wrong problem when it comes to making human beings a space faring species. The fragility of human flesh is the barrier to colonizing space. You can try to solve this problem by wrapping it in a contained atmosphere or wait a thousand years…

There is a TV series better than Black Mirror believe it or not. I'll shill for it because it's an amazing work of art.

It's called Utopia, it's a conspiracy thriller from Channel 4, and if it doesn't send chills down your spine and raise your hackles then you aren't alive.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/utopia

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#50

Post by internaut »

the_duke wrote: post #14
mentos wrote: post #3

Anyone that hasn't yet, check out Black Mirror on Netflix. It has a lot of ideas in it that I am surprised to see in a show in 2016. I love Elon Musk but I think he is solving the wrong problem when it comes to making human beings a space faring species. The fragility of human flesh is the barrier to colonizing space. You can try to solve this problem by wrapping it in a contained atmosphere or wait a thousand years…

I recently discovered Black Mirror. It's a great and fascinating series. Finally something other then the mind numbing pabulum that is most TV. I especially loved season 1 / episode 2. --- The way our brain works, all experience, self consciousness and awareness is intricately linked to physical perception. If we were to go the 'brain in a petri dish' route, we would have to fake all those signals a body would send t…

Watch Utopia.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/utopia

I judge it better than Black Mirror. Don't google any information about it because it will sound stupid, just watch it outright.

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