Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: shades who wrote (62487)	4/22/2005 4:40:16 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

<My slashdot geek friends think isaac asimovs I Robot will be here within the next 50 years with nueral nets and the "machines" will be coming up with the new stuff - what time frame do you think is realistic?> It's now under construction. A brain is just a bunch of neurons which fire at each other after getting input from various detectors such as eyes, ears, skin nerves, nose and then sends signals out again [to fingers in my case], eyes ["swivel left, fast!!"], feet ["run, and make it snappy"]. A brain is a permanent feedback loop which learns as it goes, driven by animal needs such as hunger, lust, fear, cold. The cyberspace brain is sneaking up on us. People tend to think in terms of robots and artificial intelligence as being servants of humans, as though there's some mystical reason humans [a kind of chimp which can stand upright for longer and is usually taller and can use more symbolic language] should be superior to dumb computers. I don't know of any law of the universe such as gravity, thermodynamic, or electromagnetic force rules, which says that humans are the end stage of 'intellect'. On the contrary, it seems obvious to me that we are not. Our pathetically stupid brains have already been vastly outstripped by Google which can remember stupendously huge amounts of stuff and recall it in seconds. For example, "Buridan's Ass". You probably haven't come across this obscure ass. Google has and can remember many links in a second. pixnaps.blogspot.com Not only does Google cleverly put them in order of importance, it usually gives links germane to what I'm thinking about. That link for example launches straight into cognition and the meaning of thinking. So, in terms of memory, a simple verbal input can elicit fantastic memory action in the cyberspace brain. Already, cyberspace is recording It's own data for purposes to do with It's own functioning, not for the benefit of humans. For example, at the most basic level, the network monitors itself and sends data the most efficient way. Of course all that's been done is by people writing software but necessity is the mother of invention and increasingly, such things as software development will be automated. It'll be a long process, but my guess is that by 2010 the average person will be feeling distinctly not part of what's going on, while the cognoscenti are making loads of money from working symbiotically with It. By 2020, there will be a lot of debate on who "controls" cyberspace and it will be evident that nobody really does. It will have It's own needs to function well and people will have to go along with it or forego the benefits and since the cognoscenti get benefits and pass the benefits on to those who serve them, they will be making it work. Ted Kaczynski saw it all coming, but he got locked up as some sort of crazy. In fact, he was right that the human way of life is being superseded. Bill Joy "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" is worth a read. Google can help you with that. Ray Kurzweil has written about spiritual machines. Stephen Hawking has written about the need for some genetic engineering to try to keep up for a while. Google can get you all that. I don't have a link at my fingertips. It's coming and there's nothing anyone can do about it. That's because It's a good thing, for most people at each stage of It's development. In a similar way, humans were once like chimps, but the clever new neurons which some had were worth having in one's brain and female chimpoid/humans would see a bright guy and figure his DNA would be a good carrier and spreader of hers. So, the smart genes propagated quickly, while the duds fizzled out. Now, it's nearly all humans and hardly any chimps. The process will be similar for It, but a LOT faster as it doesn't take a 50 year lifetime for the next phase of development in the cyberspace realm. With a bit of luck, chimpoid Mqurice will last long enough to see people work out that humans are more like animals than we are like cyberspacoids. I don't think human "minds" will be uploaded to cyberspace. We are a bunch of wet chemistry, linked to biological needs. We'd be lost in cyberspace. Cyberspace is a new species, just as there used to be a mitochondria on their own, which ganged up with other cells which then stacked up by the billion to form smarty pants people, a new species, distinct from mitochondria . We are at best the equivalent of mitochondria to It. At least for a while. I should ask Google about mitochondria as I might not understand that correctly. Google knows. Mqurice