Is Discussing the Singularity Better than Selling Crack on the Street?

Science Fiction writier Charlie Stross set off a great online fracas over the singularity late last month when he published "Three Arguments Against the Singularity" on his blog. The piece triggered a furious response from Michael Anissimov, and set the stage for a series of online singularity brushfire wars across the web.

Almost a week later, Kyle Munkittrick entered the fray with his piece, "The AI Singularity is Dead. Long Live the Cybernetic Singularity!" Munkittrick follows up that sally with a piece in a Discover blog "Why I'm Not Afraid of the Singularity." (via Brian Wang).... More from Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias

The Al Fin blog was founded in 2005 as something of a "parasingularity" or "biosingularity" alternative to the Kurzweil singularity vision. Blog founder Al Fin's objection to the Kurzweilian vision and the associated "gee whiz! futurism school" has always been based on what he thinks is a somewhat better informed, clearer understanding of the basis of human intelligence than most singularity enthusiasts and artificial intelligence enthusiasts appear to possess.

The same "fuzzy understanding" of human intelligence appears to dog even singularity and AI critics, such as Charlie Stross and Robin Hanson. The fuzziness problem is far more severe in true believers in an AI Singularity, such as Ray Kurzweil.

Kyle Munkittrick came very close to getting some key ideas right, in his piece "The AI Singularity is Dead. Long Live the Cybernetic Singularity!

As neuro-interface technology improves (hat tip Greg Fish) the information on the internet and stored in our external brains will become more expansive and more intimately connected with our nervous systems. The steps toward the Singularity will not be progressive improvement of general AI but of the gradual blending of the biological wetware of the human brain with the artificial hardware of computer technology. The Singularity will be the perfection of the mind-computer interface, such that where the mental processes of the human right-brain ends and the high-powered computer left-brain ends will be indistinguishable both externally by objective observation and internally by the subjective experience of the individual. I call this event the Cybernetic Singularity. _KM

"Cyborg Singularity" actually sounds better than cybernetic singularity, and would be more accurate.

What virtually all of these singularity debaters -- both pro and con -- leave out of the discussion, is the potential for a qualitative change in human intelligence. While evolution constrains the adaptability of the human organism, including the brain, we do not understand genetics or the brain nearly enough to know what those limitations are.

That is why we cannot discount the "Cyborg Singularity." Human action is already greatly extended and empowered by telecommunications, advanced computing, and robotics. Throw in biotechnology, advanced materials, and nanotechnology, and you extend the range of human action immensely. So far, there is a human brain at the controls -- even if human initiated processes sometimes go out of control.

Eventually it will not be human minds -- as we know them -- at the controls. Whether by way of genetic engineering, cyborg symbiosis, or another method of evolved higher (faster, more powerful) intelligence, the "hands" at the controls will be moved by minds other than "ours."

That is why everyone involved in the debate is likely to be wrong, and by a wide margin. The reality is apt to be stranger than we can possibly imagine, at this point in our development. Does that mean that it a waste of time to discuss the ideas, that the debate is no better than selling crack on the street?

No, the discussion is helpful to those who do not get wrapped up in it, but rather use it as a springboard for ideas and speculations, based upon clear knowledge and logic of what is known at this time. Science fiction is also particularly useful for that purpose, along with such speculative discussions as linked above.

Bonus: Munkittrick summarises the argument as he sees it:

1. Stross’ point: Human intelligence has three characteristics: embodiment, self-interest, and evolutionary emergence. AI will not/cannot/should not mirror human intelligence.

2. Singularitarian response: Anissimov and Goertzel argue that human-level general intelligence need not function or arise the way human intelligence has. With sufficient research and devotion to Saint Bayes, super-intelligent friendly AI is probable.

3. Skeptic rebuttal: Hanson argues A) “Intelligence” is a nebulous catch-all like “betterness” that is ill-defined. The ambiguity of the word renders the claims of Singularitarians difficult/impossible to disprove (i.e. special pleading); Knapp argues B) Computers and AI are excellent at specific types of thinking and augmenting human thought (i.e. Kasparov’s Advanced Chess). Even if one grants that AI could reach human or beyond human level, the nature of that intelligence would be neither independent nor self-motivated nor sufficiently well-rounded and, as a result, “bootstrapping” intelligence explosions would not happen as Singularitarian’s foresee. _KM

What we are learning in neuroscience and cogsci is that philosophical arguments such as most of those above, are far behind the curve. Tools of computation and experimentation (including the participating human minds) are evolving and spewing out revolutionary findings so quickly that by the time most philosophers realise that the cyborg biosingularity is affecting their lives, it will be too late.

Al Fin futurologists predict that the cyborg biosingularity will be initiated in a wholly unauthorised manner by persons who may or may not be prepared to deal with the repercussions.

Optimism vs Pessimism: Which is More Rational?

Matt Ridley's latest book, "The Rational Optimist," highlights the deep vein of pessimism flowing through the modern human heart. The video above is from a May, 2010, presentation at Cato. More recently, David Boaz takes a brief look at The Rational Optimist, and how its main themes are viewed by various persons.

One of the most striking images from the video above is a graphic image comparing the areas of land required to support a single human under various regimes of food production. Hunter gatherers, for example, required about 1,000 hectares of land to feed each person. The use of slash and burn agriculture reduced that area to roughly 10 hectares of land per person. Agricultural methods of the 1950s reduced the area further to about 4,000 sq metres (0.4 ha) per person. Modern agriculture of the 2000s needs only 1250 sq metres to feed each person. And so it goes.

Ridley also looks closely at the marvelous economies that are possible from both trade, and division of labour. It is clear that over the long run, the plight of most living persons on Earth has gotten "better." More quantity and variety of foods to eat, longer lives, better treatments for disease, etc.

But life does not proceed along a monotonic curve. No doubt life was getting better in many ways in Pompei, just before Vesuvius uncorked itself. Not long before the eruption of Hitler's wehrmacht in Europe, there were many reasons for Europeans to believe that things were getting better, in recovering from economic devastation.

The point being that there are trends of varying duration. If you see that a short term trend appears to be aligned with a long-term trend, you may feel that you understand how things are going. But between the short and the long terms, the medium term trend can be a killer.

The actual texture of most trends is more like a fractal curve -- like the shoreline of Britain, rough and uneven at any scale of observation. Step back far enough and you can "fuzz out" most of the detail, leaving something like a simple trend. Zoom in closely enough at the right point and you may achieve the appearance of a simple trend -- perhaps in alignment with the long-term view, by chance.

We see this phenomenon of selective focus in various extrapolative dooms such as peak oil DOOM! and carbon hysteria DOOM!. Predictions of climate catastrophe depend upon the timescale selected, and selective omission of important details and uncertainties. Predictions of peak oil DOOM! depend upon timescale, ignorance of actual resource (see recent shock of shale oil bonanza) and a strict avoidance of the reality that the debate is not at its essence about oil, but is about useful energy.

Recent trends of debt and demography in Europe and the Anglosphere suggest that an economic retrenchment of very serious proportions is likely to occur within the next 1 or 2 decades. Such economic retrenchments have often been accompanied by wars, historically. I am not certain how to phrase an optimistic viewpoint of that reality.

But long-term trends in technology suggest that even cyclic problems which derive directly from innate human stupidity may be soluble within a century or two. Al Fin cognitive scientists and cognitive sociologists believe that correcting human stupidity itself would be a worthy goal.

It is important to maintain an open mind toward possible catastrophes, golden ages, and utopias. Many would-be utopians are not afraid to crack a large number of eggs to cook their golden omelettes. Likewise, many doomers are quite willing to be the instruments of the doom and dieoff which they so loudly predict.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

Ray Kurzweil's Singularity Idiocracy University?

SingularityHub

Ray Kurzweil's Singularity University just wrapped up its second year's special summer session. The emphasis this year was on "a dozen more ways to help a billion people," according to Singularity Hub, which covered the session. In other words, an institution supposedly devoted to "the sinularity" was hijacked -- at least for this year -- to serve as a hard-flogged nag of the "appropriate technology" movement. The appropriate technology movement receives many billions of dollars a year from governments and foundations, and is already an important part of the curricula of hundreds of colleges and universities worldwide. So why did the Singularity University -- the only institution of its kind -- allow itself to be 'jacked by a worldwide monster movement which by all accounts is already over-funded and over-expensed by career bureaucrats and other rent-seekers?

Because the problems are so huge? Not really. Of course, the problems of the third world are certainly huge and in need of solutions. But the professional "problem-solvers" and "do-gooders" of the appropriate technology movement -- at least the bureaucratic part of the teams -- do not necessarily want to solve the problems at all. As long as the problems exist, these bureaucrats have lucrative careers in a high status, benevolent, and philanthropic occupation.

They have no reason to fear that the problems of the third world will suddenly fade away, or otherwise be solved by do-gooding appropriate technologists. The problems of the third world are institutionalised in a secure location, as well hidden as it is possible to hide a thing.

The endemic problem of the third world is corruption. If you do not change the corruption, you will not solve any problems other than to accelerate the growth rates of highly-dependent, non-productive populations of corrupt third world nations.

But the corruption cannot be changed as long as it is the nature of the people to accept this high level of corruption in their leadership. In general, there are three sorts of populations which accept high levels of corruption in their leaders:

1. populations living under dictatorships such as North Korea's and Iran's;
2. populations which are unable to create a large enough middle class and social mobility to dynamically bridge the gap between the very rich and the very poor; and
3. populations living in essential anarchy, without any rule of law

Some nations pass through conditions of dictatorship or anarchy, on the way to something better and less corrupt. But other nations and populations reside in a state of poverty and corruption virtually all of their existence -- regardless of how many NGOs, government aid programs, philanthropic gifts, appropriate technology programs, Peace Corps visits, or other benefits it may have received. Haiti is a good example. The continent of Africa contains several others. Asia and Latin America have other examples that may be a bit more complex.

The basic problem of the perpetually impoverished parts of the third world centers around the population substrate of those nations. What can the people accomplish under the very best of circumstances? How many top-rate people in the sciences, the professions, the trades, and other crucial occupations can these populations supply? To put it bluntly, "How can we expect these populations to climb out of their deep holes as long as their average population IQ is below 85?"

This summer's session of the Singularity University was not about the Singularity, by all accounts (provided by SingularityHub). Instead, it was about the Idiocracy, the perpetually corrupt and impoverished parts of the world that cannot be transformed from the outside, regardless of the best intentions.

There is nothing wrong with appropriate technology, or in trying to improve basic health and living conditions of persons in abject poverty and misery. It is appropriate that churches, charities, philanthropists, and other well wishers devote a portion of their time and resources to helping such people, if they can. But that is not what the singularity is about.

The singularity, as described by Kurzweil, is a mind-blowingly fast transition from a world where we can at least fool ourselves into thinking that we can keep up with important events and developments, to a world where all pretense of keeping up with the advances must be abandoned.

Whether such a world comes about as a result of highly advanced machine intelligences, or as a result of more intelligent humans learning to network their intelligences together (and with sub-intelligent but very fast machines), the end result of change too cheap to meter is the same.

There are millions of people and institutions in the affluent world working to improve the conditions of the third world, but only one Singularity University. We cannot afford to jump on anyone's bandwagon -- even the bandwagon of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and similar well-meaning philanthropic organisations -- if we expect to get past the Idiocratic bottleneck which threatens almost all societies at this time.

Singularity Dreams, Reality's Idiocratic Nightmare

ImageSource
Brian Wang was busy liveblogging the Singularity Summit this past weekend in San Francisco. Here is a short excerpt from Brian's weekend work:

The best of the 2010Singularity Summit

Shane legg has developed a formula and program that generates a continuous intelligence measurement for rating algorithms and systems This has the potential to more objectively guide the improvement of AI and algorithms.

Goertzel is using AI techniques to figure out useful things about the Genescient long lived flies.

Lance Becker on using cold and chemical cocktails to enable you to survive having no oxygen to your brain for hours instead of four minutes

The talk was not good but the work has big potential. Anita Goel is harnessing DNA polymerase in devices for rapid sequencing and as actuators.

The interesting inventions of Steve mann.

Details on brain computer interfaces

Combining neuroscience and machine learning as a hybrid approach to AGI _SingularitySummit_via_BrianWang

The rest of the coverage is available at the link above.

The amount of mental effort devoted to laying the groundwork for "The Singularity" is impressive, and not likely to have been wasted in the long run. Yet it can be somewhat depressing to contrast such astounding plans and dreams for the future with the sad economic, societal, and political realities of an encroaching Idiocracy of perverse "leadership" around the world.

From the university to the economy to the moral and political leadership of society -- the dregs and the offal have emerged to convene the prelude to the Idiocracy.

Many eyes are looking to dreams of the singularity in hopes of finding salvation from the entropic reality on almost every front. We will learn over the next decade or two how effective a well planned and executed future can be as an antidote to popular ideological poisons that have penetrated to the heart and soul of a corrupt society.

Wise persons will prepare for the possibility of extreme hardship between now and then.

More: Is it possible that the west has laid the groundwork of a marvelous future only to see other emerging cultures build the final structures?

Brian Wang Live Blogs Techonomy from Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe
Brian Wang of NextBigFuture is currently blogging the Techonomy Conference in Lake Tahoe. The conference brings together some exceptional visionaries, researchers, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists in an attempt to frame a new vision for the future.

Brian live-blogged the conference all day yesterday, when speakers discussed re-inventing intelligence, re-inventing the economy, and re-inventing infrastructure, and is presumably up and ready to take in today's feast for the mind. On Friday, Bill Gates presents the closing talk: "Reinventing Capitalism: How to jumpstart what the marketplace can’t". It looks to Al Fin as if Techonomy is about generalities and quasi-Platonic idealism.

This weeks events at Lake Tahoe will prime Brian's liveblogging skills in preparation for next weeks Singularity Summit in San Francisco. The Singularity Summit focuses on artificial general intelligence as a trigger for "the singularity" as the takeoff point to an infinite future.

You will probably find more practical singularitarians -- who are willing to get their hands dirty in implementing the subject matter -- than techonomists and similar abstract, clean-handed futurists at parallel gatherings. But even singularitarians can become stuck on the head of a pin with millions of angels, and find it difficult to get back into the real world.

It is not unusual for wealthy and gifted men and women to feel an obligation to the masses of those less fortunate than themselves. Such meetings as the Techonomy Conference allow them to mingle and discuss their latest ideas for saving the world and redefining humanity. But how much good actually comes from such gatherings and forums? Did most of the participants, for example, back the disastrous Obama Pelosi regime that is currently on a destructive rampage through national and international economies and relations?

Practical competencies and realistic perspectives can often be difficult to find among those whose wealth and/or postion isolates them from the mundane life or death concerns of most persons. Given that isolation, how can their ideas improve the existences of the masses of people whom they profess to care about?

The most good that entrepreneurs and venture capitalists could do is to bring about new and useful enterprises and industries at all scales of the economy, and to stop financing the very people and organisations which are destroying the future of humankind. We need more distributed productive enterprise and less parasitic bureaucratic infrastructure.

It is important to dissect our institutions and cultures in order to find ways we might improve our existences and futures. But between the present and the abundant future, lie a number of deadly obstacles that must be confronted. It is not clear that the participants of most of these organisations are concerned about these obstacles -- which are far more dangerous to the future of humans than the phantoms of climate catastrophe or peak energy.

When very wealthy, gifted, and powerful people pour their assets (and the assets of society) down rat-holes, most onlookers will not give it a second thought -- such waste is most common. But it would be better for mankind if such wealthy, gifted, and powerful people turned away from monolithic bureaucratic centers of redistribution, and put their excess assets into well-conceived, interlocking, scalable, future-oriented, profit-making enterprises which create opportunities for individuals.