Technological Singularity on Weird Things

Greg Fish over at Weird Things has a post on the Singularity, which is negative about it, and I made a response in the comments. Part of the problem here is the definition of “Singularity” and which one I care about. I don’t care about the word “Singularity” as a synonym for “Progress”. However, as a practical matter, I am concerned that unfriendly AI profoundly threatens the future of the human species. If human-equivalent and human-surpassing AI is possible in principle, it will be developed sooner or later, whether or not transhumanism, life extension, or body modifications are cool at the time. “Transhumanist attitude” is an interesting topic unto itself, but relatively independent of the technical questions of whether AGI is possible, and if so, whether it poses a threat to us, and if so, whether we should do something about it. To me, the answers to all the questions are obviously “yes”.

Transhumanist subcultural identification can be a fun thing, but there’s definitely a limit to how seriously I take it. AI, on the other hand, …

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Brain Preservation Technology Prize, BrainPreservation.org

Miron Cuperman recently alerted me to a new website, BrainPreservation.org. Here’s the homepage text:

I do want to change the world – I want to put an end to death. I want to make it every person’s right to experience the future centuries from now, and to live without the constant fear that aging and crippling disease will take away their joy for life, make them a burden to their loved ones, and strip them of their dignity. We have it within our power today to create that world. Let me say that again, we have it within our power today to create that world. From a medical and technical standpoint all that is needed is the development of a surgical procedure for perfusing a patient’s circulatory system with a series of fixatives and plastic resins capable of perfectly preserving their brain’s neural circuitry in a plasticized block for long-term storage. Such a procedure would, in effect, put the patient into a long dreamless sleep where they can wait out the decades or centuries necessary for the development …

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Assorted Links March 20, 2010

The above magazine allegedly got the meme of molecular nanotechnology really going in 1986, according to Eric Drexler. He pointed out that nanotechnology is not really meant to “mimic life”. Anyway, molecular nanotechnology sure is scary! I hope it isn’t developed anytime soon.

Here are a number of links I’ve been meaning to share. A disproportionate amount are from Singularity Hub, a site that’s been increasing in quality lately. They don’t really post about the Singularity (high technology in general and the Singularity are not equivalent, sorry), but it’s still interesting news.

Nanotechnology artificial leaves for hydrogen production Rutgers 2010 Singularity course Company to sell ‘world’s first practical jetpack’ for $75,000 (w/ Video) How to see through opaque materials How to Reboot Your Corpse (pathetically poorly researched article from IEEE… a publication whose reputation is rapidly falling among tech enthusiasts) Robot Gymnast Performs Again! fMRI read the images in your brain — we know what you’re looking at Adam the Robot …

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Rudi Hoffman: Ten Ways to Avoid Being the Next Cryonics Legal Case

Rudi Hoffman is the man to go to for life insurance to fund a cryonics contract. Last I heard, he had cornered about 95% of the market in this small niche. In light of the recent Mary Robbins case, Rudi has written up a list of choices cryonicists can make to ensure that our hostile relatives don’t try to pull us out of the freezer, valiantly (according to some people, apparently) making our neural structures available for consumption by a variety of worms and bacteria. Here’s the intro:

Several of my clients and friends have asked me for observations regarding securing their cryonics arrangements even with contrary wishes of friends and relatives. Given the recent Mary Robbins case in Colorado, and multiple previous cases available in some detail on the websites of both CI and Alcor, structuring your affairs in the most secure manner currently has top of mind awareness for many who are serious about their cryonics plans. The purpose of this article is to provide some insight into how serious cryonicists can structure their affairs …

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Legal Victory for Cryonics

There’s another media explosion over cryonics, this time having to do with a woman named Mary Robbins. She signed numerous documents indicating she wanted to be cryopreserved at Alcor, then, her family claimed that she changed her mind in her final days. A Colorado court recently ruled in favor of Alcor because no documentation to back up the family’s argument was ever produced, as required by Colorado law. Here is the Associated Press coverage. This ruling sets a good precedent. It sometimes seems as if hostile family members are willing to throw away the law to ensure that their relative rots in the ground in lieu of being cryopreserved. Almost as if their soul would be trapped if they were suspended.

It’s disappointing how many family members freak out when they find out that their mother/father/relatives are signed up for cryonics and going into cryosuspension. Even if I thought cryonics was complete bunkum, I would at least have the decency to respect the wishes of my relative.

Even if I thought revival …

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Triumph of the Cyborg Composer — David Cope and “Emily Howell”

For those who are interested, there is a long article at MillerMcCune.com on David Cope, the UC Santa Cruz professor emeritus who has a history of creating AIs that compose music. His latest creation, dubbed Emily Howell, is ready to be unveiled soon, and the article includes a couple samples of “her” work. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Emmy was once the world’s most advanced artificially intelligent composer, and because he’d managed to breathe a sort of life into her, he became a modern-day musical Dr. Frankenstein. She produced thousands of scores in the style of classical heavyweights, scores so impressive that classical music scholars failed to identify them as computer-created. Cope attracted praise from musicians and computer scientists, but his creation raised troubling questions: If a machine could write a Mozart sonata every bit as good as the originals, then what was so special about Mozart? And was there really any soul behind the great works, or were Beethoven and his ilk just clever mathematical manipulators of notes?

Cope’s answers — not much, and yes — …

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My Talk at Foresight 2010: “Don’t Fear the Singularity, but Be Careful: Friendly AI Design”

Michael Anissimov: “Don’t Fear the Singularity, but Be Careful: Friendly AI Design” at Foresight 2010 Conference from Foresight Institute on Vimeo.

Here’s my talk from Foresight! If you read this blog, there won’t be much new to you. I probably should have summarized the talk at the beginning. Unfortunately I got cut off at around slide 40 out of 55 due to schedule problems, so I missed the opportunity to summarize some of SIAI’s recent work and ended up mainly talking about 1) generic progress in AI, 2) media coverage of AI and Singularity, 3) the intelligence explosion idea, 4) the AI advantage, and 5) the inherent unconnectedness of morality and intelligence (Hume). Ignore the title; I didn’t really get into Friendly AI design at all. It was more of an introduction to why Friendly AI may be required. (I’m not sure I would have even used the term “Friendly AI” if I were making up the talk title again, because it’s been argued by a number of people that the term sounds …

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Seasteading Institute Engineering Assessment (Part 1) Released

You can get it on their research page or download the pdf directly. From the preface:

This document is a high-level analysis of the engineering challenges involved in homesteading the high seas. The aim is not to provide a detailed design of a specific seastead, but rather to find answers to general questions, such as the cost per unit area of functional real estate.

H/t to the Seasteading Institute blog for the news.

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