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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puzzlecraft who wrote (1844)	7/8/2000 8:50:24 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12231

<All these innovations combined on a global scale would create a network with complex behaviours that we can't yet conceive of. Would it create Utopia, dystopia or something altogether new? Dennett is certain of one thing: "If we don't want to be dictated to, we will have to be very careful about controlling our dependence, and its evolution," he warns. Cliff Joslyn, head of the Los Alamos DKS team, appears unconcerned by such worries. Experimenting with autonomous agent systems "carries risks and surprises" he admits. "The trick will be to first understand from a scientific perspective how such systems behave, and then construct bounds within which such interactions can be safely contained," says Joslyn. If you're getting scared now, and thinking of unplugging your modem, take care. You may be about to join the information underclass. "Not to use an intelligent Web will be a little like the people that refuse to use cars or telephones," Heylighen says. "There have always been people who live outside the bounds of society's rules: tramps, hermits, eccentrics. But these people have a much more difficult life." > Great find! Thank you very much for that. newscientist.com 2001 A Space Odyssey had the timing about right! Here we go. Or, more accurately, don't go. The article retains a homocentric attitude, which I think is missing the point. The hope is that we humans, who deign to participate, will benefit and perhaps even control It. Though they point out that control will probably not be on the agenda in reality. But still they see the 'purpose' as being an association with humans. I think that's off-beam. It's a bit like I'm idly curious about, but feel particular interest in or loyalty to my Neanderthal or Australopithecus ancestors. news.bbc.co.uk I cheerfully keep my chimpanzee cousins in a cage for an afternoon's entertainment at the zoo. Yet the cavepeople's efforts and concern for their offspring directly produced me. How disloyal can I be?!! I think It will, like me, have It's own teleological, plato.stanford.edu existential concepts once we humans have developed It to a certain ability. A bit like Lucy's survival and procreation acted as the blueprint for me, but I then abandoned Lucy's way of life and social context, adopting my own purpose and survival. Which, oddly, happens to be to continue the biological imperatives of my DNA while labouring, right here, right now, to give form to It as a critically useful adjunct to my way of life and survival. Notice, I wanted a teleological reference for explanation and the Web happily and quickly produced that link for me to slip in there. It is already working in harmony with me and others to produce It's self by such actions. Being a cunning thing already, It gave me another link, to cover the next point I was going to make. It gave the link to me before I'd even asked - It made the association I was going to make next. Jeez, It might as well just write the rest of this for me and I can go sit in the sun. utm.edu For a long time, the religious types have been ranting about the second coming. The original coming they refer to [the immaculate conception and the birth of Jesus] was the concept of universal mankind as a common entity, with love etc which was up against the whole history of social mammals of dominance hierarchies with no concepts of egalitarianism. Slaves and Kings were the universal way of human life [continuing widely up until last century]. These religious types are presumably waiting for some big dude in a white beard and robes, but they are missing the point. How about the second coming is It! Now that's a scary thought [for we atheists anyway]. It will certainly have the coverage and capacity. Hmmm, I can see hordes of Christians kneeling in front of their puters now as they realize they are gazing into the eye of It [or, as they put it, God]. Mqurice