Zero Point  Wrote:

WalkersEverywhere  Wrote:

The dude was a genius psychonaut, and very hetero.

Yeah, I'm jealous of his intellect actually

Dittos.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8v8mgwuubU

Technological Singularity

Technological (a.k.a., "human competitive" or "effective machine consciousness") singularities, are commonly considered a composite of developmental, physical, and computational singularity types, though they also have mathematical and even cosmological singularity properties (e.g., Chaisson's Phi trends). The coming emergence of human-surpassing artificial intelligence, the "A.I. singularity," represents the usual meaning of the term "singularity" when used generically by futurists. In our research so far, the technological singularity proposal can be deconstructed into at least seven discrete concepts. Note that five of these are easily understood within the developmental singularity idea set, which is itself an amalgam of other singularity types. While there are other qualities we could consider, these seven may provide a useful introduction to the nature of the coming technological singularity:

1) "singular" human-competitive A.I. emergence (a.k.a. the "A.I. singularity," can be seen as hierarchical emergence, a developmental singularity)
2) discontinuity (or "punctuation," also a property of physical singularities)
3) unknowability (a property shared with computational singularities)
4) convergent (predictably emergent, a property of developmental singularities)
5) hierarchical (adding to a chain of previous emergences, a property of developmental singularities)
6) 'instantaneity' (or more accurately: a sustained period of increasingly rapid acceleration in special emergent systems (think of ovulation, at the cellular level), also a property of developmental singularities)
7) reproductive (able to recreate itself with important new variations, also a property of developmental singularities)

Singular, discontinous, unknowable, convergent, hierarchical, instantaneous, and reproductive all denote interesting properties associated with a number of other known singularities/phase changes in general. So while the technological singularity concept is a complex amalgam, in the process of unpacking it we find only a small kernel of unique new information has been added to the conceptual landscape.

The word "singular", in the first component, refers to the new, unique, and one-time-only nature of the emergence of any developmental singularity. This aspect is perhaps the simplest and most frequently overlooked dimension of the technological singularity concept. Yet this contains the only truly unique idea that the hypothesis proposes, namely that general technological intelligence must soon capture and permanently exceed even the highest-level features of human biological intelligence and autonomy.

In futurist and transhumanist literature, this specific idea has also been called the "A.I. singularity." This simple outcompetition does not itself comprise a singularity, but it is the technological singularity's most original contribution to the general singularity literature discussed above. The A.I. singularity idea proposes that there is one imminent singular time on Earth when technological intelligence will surpass human biological intelligence as the dominant form of local computation.

It will be difficult to know exactly when this competitive and permanent event will have occurred, so various measures have been proposed. A machine solution to a generalized Turing Test of "effective consciousness" (regardless of the actual inner subjective state of the system) is most commonly suggested as a useful indication of its arrival, though there are problems with this measure, as might be expected.

Note also that the A.I. technological singularity idea does not require that the imminent runaway of local intelligence must have some universal significance, but leaves that issue as an outstanding question. Prominent explorers and advocates of the technological singularity idea have been John Von Neumann, I.J. Good, Hans Moravec, Vernor Vinge, Danny Hillis, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Damien Broderick, Ben Goertzel, John Smart, a small number of other futurists, and most eloquently to date, Ray Kurzweil, in his book summary, "The Law of Accelerating Returns".

Dyson Spheres

http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2012...-five.html

Let's build a Dyson sphere!

And why wouldn't we want to?

By enveloping the sun with a massive array of solar panels, humanity would graduate to a Type 2 Kardashev civilization capable of utilizing nearly 100% of the sun's energy output. A Dyson sphere would provide us with more energy than we would ever know what to do with while dramatically increasing our living space. Given that our resources here on Earth are starting to dwindle, and combined with the problem of increasing demand for more energy and living space, this would seem to a good long-term plan for our species.

Implausible you say? Something for our distant descendants to consider?

Think again: We are closer to being able to build a Dyson Sphere than we think. In fact, we could conceivably get going on the project in about 25 to 50 years, with completion of the first phase requiring only a few decades. Yes, really.

(more at link)

Shit, Olaf would almost pass the Turing test...

Zero Point  Wrote:

Shit, Olaf would almost pass the Turing test...

Honestly though.
Do you think we're going around that final bend?
I know I have but I'll probably get locked up for that at some stage.

WalkersEverywhere  Wrote:

Zero Point  Wrote:

Shit, Olaf would almost pass the Turing test...

On that note mate, I'm pulling the pin.
G'night Tex.