51–60 of 69 posts
Wow, Carmack looks like a passionate, geeky 16 year old. It's very endearing for such a legend.
Refreshing to hear a talk like that amongst discussions around language, platform wars.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The singularity specifically requires AIs that can build smarter AIs. I'm not sure any of our current progress is really leading to true AI.
"specifically requires AIs that can build smarter AIs" The trendy "rapture of the nerds" version of the singularity does. The original definition is technology advancing at a faster rate than humans are capable of integrating and managing it. It was identified while trying to identify existential threats to humanity. It's fascinating watching a warning about future dangers get repackaged by AI focused futurists into…
Wow, Carmack looks like a passionate, geeky 16 year old. It's very endearing for such a legend.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The singularity specifically requires AIs that can build smarter AIs. I'm not sure any of our current progress is really leading to true AI.
"specifically requires AIs that can build smarter AIs" The trendy "rapture of the nerds" version of the singularity does. The original definition is technology advancing at a faster rate than humans are capable of integrating and managing it. It was identified while trying to identify existential threats to humanity. It's fascinating watching a warning about future dangers get repackaged by AI focused futurists into…
"Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make." - I. J. Good, 1965
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"specifically requires AIs that can build smarter AIs" The trendy "rapture of the nerds" version of the singularity does. The original definition is technology advancing at a faster rate than humans are capable of integrating and managing it. It was identified while trying to identify existential threats to humanity. It's fascinating watching a warning about future dangers get repackaged by AI focused futurists into…
well, specifically it refers to a period of technology advancement so rapid that we entirely lose the ability to make predictions about the other side. (this is by analogy with the mathematical definition of a singularity, a point at which your equations break down, by way of the physics application of the concept to black holes, out of which information cannot flow)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"specifically requires AIs that can build smarter AIs" The trendy "rapture of the nerds" version of the singularity does. The original definition is technology advancing at a faster rate than humans are capable of integrating and managing it. It was identified while trying to identify existential threats to humanity. It's fascinating watching a warning about future dangers get repackaged by AI focused futurists into…
No, it's always been about AI: "Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. T…
- Stanisław Ulam, 1958 (referring to a conversation with John von Neumann)
Good's "intelligence explosion" concept is the basis of the modern singularity religion but not the origin of the term 'Singularity' used to mean a technological singularity. Good never uses the term.
So your quote makes my point doesn't it? That a utopian version of the intelligence explosion has replaced the original meaning of the technological singularity. One that favours the views of the AI researchers who went into futurism when the research money dried up.
Edit: I didn't know this but when looking up the date of that Ulam quote I learned that Vernor Vinge seems to be the first person to use the term singularity in the context of Good's intelligence explosion. In 1983. In the pages of that wonderful bastion of great scifi and pseudoscience that I loved as a kid: Omni Magazine.
That's some pretty interesting support.
[1] http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/valve-how-i-got-here-w...
There's something very pleasing to know that guys like Carmack aren't just punching out tomorrow's FPS engines, but doing out of the box stuff like this. I wonder if we're entering some kind of tech golden age. The post-PC stuff, SpaceX/Tesla, Kindle/Nook, Win8, Smartphones, etc things have gotten weird quickly. I'm still waiting to wake up one day and see a $999 home robot that can do everything from clean the bathr…
Sounds like you may not be familiar with Armadillo Aerospace yet...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, this isn't it. We're entering an age of higher order technology, where each advancement leads to faster advancement. In short, we are approaching what many have called the singularity.
The singularity specifically requires AIs that can build smarter AIs. I'm not sure any of our current progress is really leading to true AI.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Entering? This is it.
Ain't seen nothing yet. Just wait until: We have fully reusable rocket ships that let us put people in orbit at less than $200k per person (SpaceX reusable Falcon 9 / Dragon, likely to see fruition within the next 5 to 15 years or so). We have hand held computers and smartphones with the cpu power of an entire server rack today and with petabytes of non-volatile storage that's nearly as fast as ram (memristors, possi…