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Offlineunbeliever
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: Revelation]
    #5433913 - 03/23/06 10:55 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Revelation said:
If the current hype about "peak oil" is to be believed, it would seem that such a crisis would prevent us from ever reaching the singularity.

Still I'm in love with the concept, and I really dig Mckenna. It amazes me how much hype about 2012 has spread over the last few years. I even meet people in real life who mention it in passing. A self-fulfilling prophecy perhaps?




Actually, peak oil could actually force the singularity. We've been dependant upon oil, a fairly inefficient power source, for quite some time. Tie this to the capitalistic nature of the world economy and any other competing energy sources are stagnated. But remove the oil and who knows what may develop. Cold fusion? Something else entirely?


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Offlinefresh313
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: unbeliever]
    #5436743 - 03/24/06 12:12 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

"In futures studies, a technological singularity represents an "event horizon" in the predictability of human technological development past which present models of the future cease to give reliable or accurate answers, following the creation of strong artificial intelligence or the amplification of human intelligence. Futurists predict that after the Singularity, humans as they exist presently will cease to be the dominating force in scientific and technological progress, replaced with posthumans, strong AI, or both, and therefore all models of change based on past trends in human behavior will be obsolete."

i dont know what his timeline is here, but the human brain will beat computers for at least another century.


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Offlinefresh313
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5436756 - 03/24/06 12:17 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

posted by: Brian Oblivion
13-10-2003, 19:30
Please forgive the length of my "treaties" here. This is a very complex issue, and I have had the pleasure of working in neural simulation in the past.
Swayne, AlphaNumeric and Luminary have made some excellent points.
All computers, except for the most exotic, are based on the Von Neumann architecture. I see this as a major drawback to attempting to implement a system which can parallel the functions of the human brain. For one thing, the brain is a massively parallel processing device. Computers utilize the Von Neumann architecture, but do so in a way that processes are time sliced. Allowing each process to "seem" that they are being performed in parallel.

In an attempt to flesh this problem out a bit more, let's look at this from the point of view of the human brain trying to solve the problem in the way that a modern day computer would. Since the majority of computers have one single processor (percentage wise), let's start from there.

To begin, let's take one neuron (i.e., a single CPU) and attempt to perform one global event (global within reason) occurring within the brain. To do so, that neuron would need to be continually reset to the next message passing path along multiple axons, across multiple "implied" neural strata, and simulate carrying messages across "simulated" neuron communities, and on to other "simulated" neuron communities. Additionally, at each step, the "habits" acquired by the neuron [in line] to be simulated would need to be taken into account. As well as the "wiring" that had occurred from that neuron to its neighbors. All of these factors (i.e., each neuron is "unique" rather than "generalized") must be taken into account to simulate this one "global event" within the human brain. And all though out this redefinition of our single neuron, our simulation would requires that the event cascade correctly across this vast network remain stable and within context of the neighboring events.

That is a lot to ask one lowly neuron to do. It also assumes that we have faithfully re-created the network, step by step, taken into account concurrent changes taking place in other parallel neural communities, and finally arrived at a successful simulated state for the entire matrix. To further complicate matters, not all neurons are equal. Neurons tend to be specialized for the given task that they perform. So, the very nature of this lowly neuron, that we are using for this simulation, would need to be able to change its nature. Its neurochemistry would need to be modified somewhat, depending on the requirements of the specific neuron that it was acting in behalf of.

But, even if we were able to successfully achieve this simulation, because this is not really occuring in parallel, the true concurrentness of the system's state never truly existed. If we were modeling a thought, the thought never really existed. Or the reflex never actually occurred. Everything took place in one dimension, and the human brain is a 4 dimensional event.

But that is not to say that we could not create a "device" which was able to achieve this massive level of parallelization. For one thing, we already know that it exists in a working model (i.e., the human brain). And also, the human "brain" model may not be the only way to achieve this kind of processing.

I am convinced that it is possible to develop a device which would achieve real consciousness. One where it would be a moral issue as to whether it could be simply shut down. The question is, can humans build something like that? Is our human intelligence capable of taking computer development to a level of complexity that can achieve such a level of sophistication? I sincerely don't know.

We are a pretty damn smart species. Especially given the fact that we have a stone age brain. (If that were not true, then we would fear speed and much as we do heights. But fear or respect for heights has evolved in us, and fear of traveling 90 miles an hour has not nautrally occurred.)

I think that the potential is there to achieve this (at least in terms of engineering and physics - we can be sure of this because it has already been accomplished in nature). The question is can we successfully carve out the pathways needed to do it? My guess is that if we are capable, we are at least 200 years from that achievement (maybe even 1,000 years).

We can simulate specific behaviors of a neuron, that has already been accomplished by many research teams for varying purposes. It is the aggregate that is the difficult task. The brain is not the neuron. The brain is the massively parallel network architecture, containing highly specialized sub-components in the form of communities and super-communities (organs). It is real time parallelism. It may even, in part, be a quantum mechanical event resulting from its parallelism.

It just, I think, isn't possible to approach the problem from the standpoint of our current computer technology. Nor is it possible to do so with the next generation technology. Those are all single neuron based, if you want to draw a correlative. And the brain is far greater than the sum of its parts. 100 billion CPUs is not unlike a pile of 100 billion neurons. Neither alone does a brain make.


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Invisibleraytrace
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5436825 - 03/24/06 12:42 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

i dont know what his timeline is here, but the human brain will beat computers for at least another century.

yeah, especially if you consider that computers do not exist anyway


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5438766 - 03/24/06 03:41 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

fresh313 said:


i dont know what his timeline is here, but the human brain will beat computers for at least another century.




Yes, and many of the worlds leading scientists tend to agree with you, as does Kurzweil. 100 years.... relative to our present technological growth/advance.

I think we can all agree that past discoveries and inventions make it easier and pave the way for more discoveries and inventions. We couldnt make the wheelbarrow without making the wheel first.

Look at the many graphs in the wiki link I had posted. It is completely evident that our technological evolution is working in a perfect exponential way. The time between "important" discoveries and inventions gets less and less, and Kurzweil effectivly shows that we are only a few years away from the part of the exponential function which seems like a straight leap up (relativly).


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5438803 - 03/24/06 03:57 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

fresh313 said:
posted by: Brian Oblivion
13-10-2003, 19:30
Please forgive the length of my "treaties" here.




So as to not take up so much space, I will not quote your entire quotation.
But this is irrelevant as well as being a myopic "treatise". I think all one needs to do to completely destroy that argument is use the example of the computer(s) which now dominate all chessmasters.
Consider Gary Kasparov, who openly scorned the pathetic state of computer chess in 1992, yet was defeated by a computer only 5 years later.

I will let Kurzweil take it from here...

Quote:

The list of ways computers can now exceed human capabilities is rapidly growing. For example, computers are diagnosing electrocardiograms and medical images, flying and landing airplanes, controlling the tactical decisions of automated weapons, making credit and financial decisions, and many other tasks that USED to require human intelligence.




In regards to the original quote...

Quote:

Although impressive in many respects the human brain suffers from severe limitations. We use its massive parallelism (one-hundred trillion interneuronal connections operating simutaneously) to quickly recognize subtle patterns. But our thinking is extremely slow: the basic neural transactions are several million times slower then the contemporary electronic circuits. That makes our physiological bandwidth for processing new information extremely limited compared to the exponential growth of the overall human knowledge base.




-all quotes by Raymond Kurzweil from the book "The Singularity is Near".


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Offlinefresh313
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5439175 - 03/24/06 06:21 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

its not that computers arent powerful computing machines, the brain is just a dynamic computing device, its always changing and adapting and learning. computers cannot learn without being fed knowledge, so yeah a computer can be programmed to play a good game of chess, but try and program it to run. program it to ride a motorcycle, program to invent something, innovate, it cant do it. its limited by what our conciousness puts in as a program , until it achieves its own level of conciousness.

"That makes our physiological bandwidth for processing new information extremely limited compared to the exponential growth of the overall human knowledge base."

a computer has no ability to process completely new information and test it, it can only base it on what it already knows, what been programmed into it.

"The list of ways computers can now exceed human capabilities is rapidly growing. For example, computers are diagnosing electrocardiograms and medical images, flying and landing airplanes, controlling the tactical decisions of automated weapons, making credit and financial decisions, and many other tasks that USED to require human intelligence."

humans did just fine landing thier airplanes before computers, its just easier, not better. humans can read ekg and medical images as well, automated weapons? yah a computer can point and shoot. and financial decisions... i make better financial decisions than computers every day.


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5439195 - 03/24/06 06:27 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

That is the whole point of the beginning of The Singularity... a point where we can let computer technology become recursive.

right now, computers are limited by us, the humans, but the singularity is a point where computers are no longer limited by their programming and can be as versatile as a humans ability to switch from masturbation to doing the laundry.


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Offlinefresh313
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5439212 - 03/24/06 06:31 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

yeah i like using computers but i dont really wanna be a slave to one.


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5439241 - 03/24/06 06:39 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

slave is a possibility, but only one out of a million. Dont let the matrix get to you, read up on "Friendly AI".

Kurzweil talks about how when the Singularity does come, we will trascend the need for morality.
Just because it came from humans, doesnt mean that its independant consciousness or awareness of itself will warrant "evil" actions. Most harsh actions are done out of a need for survival, computers mosty likely will not have a struggle for survival, since it could almost instantly create a backup of itself in the wristwatch of a guy in Lichtenstien before "death" happened.


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Offlinefresh313
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5439250 - 03/24/06 06:43 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

the computer would be created by humans therefore the need for survival would be somehow embedded into the creating code, possibly subliminally to us. alot of things would change the nature of the conciousness thiers alot of x values in AI.


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5440244 - 03/25/06 02:54 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

see, the paradox of synthesized consciousness is that you have to make a non-living thing independantly aware of its own existence.

Computers and AI are not living things (no matter how many times you watched Haley Joel Osmond cry) and therefor have no survival reflex unless otherwise programmed/implanted.

Take a magnet for example, and imagine you are this magnet, and are independantly aware of your existance, and you know that you are not the actual metal rod, but are the force of magnetism contained in that metal rod.... would you still react to threats of destruction towards the metal rod which contains you? Or would you not be affected at all, because you understand that you cannot be destroyed and can effortlessly be contained in 4 teaspoons in a silverware tray not far away?

I truly think that our creations will surpass us spiritually, physically, and mentally (intelligence) in the very near future.

What would it take for you to accept, know, or understand that you are an indestructible force contained in a construct?


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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5440251 - 03/25/06 03:04 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Cool, AI-computer-gurus-programs :thumbup: :grin:


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Offlinefresh313
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5440288 - 03/25/06 03:38 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

"What would it take for you to accept, know, or understand that you are an indestructible force contained in a construct? "

so u mean when my power plant shuts off my computer will still work ?


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5440678 - 03/25/06 11:09 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

huh? dont forget CMOS.... lol


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5440705 - 03/25/06 11:18 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I dont really understand your response fresh13, but I want to.

basically, we have no definitive answer to the stated question, yet when independant consciousness does eventually happen in a computer, it will understand and know the answer to the stated question much quicker than we will.


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Offlinefresh313
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5441318 - 03/25/06 03:06 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

you said i was an idestructible force contained in a construct[homo sapiod body] right?

so i interpreted this as saying that my 'soul' or mind or whatever u want to call it, will live on after my construct is no longer operable.

the computer already knows the awnser, when u hit the power button it turns off.


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5441402 - 03/25/06 03:44 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

No different than a lapse in perception.... like passing out.


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Offlinefresh313
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: SneezingPenis]
    #5441428 - 03/25/06 03:59 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

yes but then it needs another power source again, something to turn the button on. its possible we have eternal conciousnesses which right before we die our computers derive power from an alternate source, on another plane or frequency or something metaphysical possibly physical yet not at all understood at the present. its unclear what would be able to travel with the computer maybe only the CMOS could be transmitted safely before total destruction is imminent.


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Kurzweil: The Singularity is Near [Re: fresh313]
    #5442611 - 03/25/06 11:04 PM (17 years, 10 months ago)

It would only need another computer. THe information, or force, is still intact, but only needs another housing unit which is condusive to expression of its purpose or function.


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