do we deserve to perish in a nuclear holocaust?

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I didn't get any further email notifications on this thread, which I find interesting. I guess WP is exercising its power of censorship.

I blame PHP

Or something

A hive mind assumes some sort of robot society that has unity. Since robots and computers are not uniform or eminating from one source today I see no reason to prevent a diverse robot system with many competing systems and, as with organic life, both intense competition and probably much violence. Athough there is no doubt that reaction times will be faster it is unlikely that a robot utopia will come about.

One military system will emerge superior before the others do.

Probably the US one, at least that's how it looks for now.

Neither you nor I are in any position to predict anything about what a robot population might do and military prerogatives are not necessarily the best initiatives for a stable and sane society. Inherent instabilities exist within all systems and several advanced nations are getting quite adept in automatic systems. China, India and Japan are bursting with talent in these directions and a good idea can arise anywhere.

As long as it has no enemies.

If not, then it would run very well.

Granted privates in the US military fight all the time, but robots don't have nads, so that should be less of a problem.

And, incidentally, DARPA appears to plan such a hive mind as I imagine.



They're way way behind.

And I say this as someone who is almost a Sinophile.

No organized effort exists without enemies which may be merely simple deficiencies in the basic concept of the system. No system is perfect and it fequently is a mere oversight in an assumption that can destroy an entire system. And since it must exist in the natural world there are always unexpected events and changes that are neutral for intent but devastating. Nature with its billions of years of "experience" frequently succumbs. Human efforts at design may initially seem more potent but a mere couple of centuries of playing creator still reveals huge gaps in knowledge and experience. In a peculiar way with all your pessimism you are a blue eyed optimist.

That's why they need to be able to revise themselves.



That's why they need to be able to revise themselves.



That's why they need to be able to revise themselves.

Look, I know something about software design. No general AI capable of carrying on its own business would be some static rule set written once and then forgotten about forever. Engineers and researchers anticipate these things you know. That's why I use Common Lisp



Alan Perlis

...of course even Lisp is too static for such purposes.

Not being a programmer, I wouldn't know. But all systems have their vulnerabilities and it only takes time to reveal them.

Everything has vulnerabilities

However I'll bet on iron before I bet on flesh

What disconcerts me is that you seem to feel that merely a change of substance will have a radical effect on the problems to be confronted. I couldn't say that organics have faced or conquered all the problems because the problems keep changing but I have a strong hunch that the problems more or less control the solutions and non-organics will probably fall into the same patterns that required organics to organize in the way that they perform. Time and again when robotcs seeks to solve a problem it becomes evident that they must look carefully at the way organics have managed and do their best to copy them. This extends from the close study of how bats deal with aerodynamics to how sharks and dolfins have developed skins to deal with water resistence. I have no doubt that social organizations and energy economy in organic systems have dealt with and mastered to a degree the problems there. Narure is a tough taskmaster and no virtual analysis can compare with the brutal trial and error of interactions over time. Robotics will have to sustain the same defenses and probably will come up with similar solutions.

Not so much a change of substance, a change of perspective

It happens that AI is the best and greatest way to carry it out

A basic error that people make is in the concept of the process of thinking. They conceive that the virtual universe they carry around in their heads to deal with reality is superior to the thinking with materials and forces that the universe carries on continuously. It is, of course, not conscious thinking in the manner of human thought and it is, in human perspective, highly uneconomic and time consuming but nature has near infinite resources and time is of no concern. What happens in the universe is not random and is highly accretional. The process permits huge experimentation on a scale unavailable to humans and it eventually (by the evidence of our existence) solves very intricate and difficult problems. That is the competition and in this area it has come up with organics. We ourselves are part of the process and we may supplement the experimentation with inorganics but it is wise to be a bit humble over our capabilities.

If we conceive of and build something that is slightly better than us, it can conceive of and build something slightly better than it, etc.

The question that we should be asking is not whether we deserve it or not, but whether the next dominate species will evolve from cockroaches or pond scum after it does in fact happen, because in my opinion it will (or something else equally or more destructive). It is only a matter of time. Will we deserve it it? Does the fire ant colony deserve to be wiped out when someone pours gasoline down it? Does that answer in any way, shape, or form effect the out come? All things come to an end. That is all.

This discussion has boiled down to an almost religious area. Evidently you view robots equivalent to a second coming. I am fully aware that religion in general has no appeal for either one of us but my experience has lead me to be very suspicious of broad confidence in any futuristic propositions without very solid concrete indications. No doubt artificial intelligence has some interesting potential but my repeated frustrations with even the minuscule sector of my computer and general knowledge of how technology can and does fall apart in critical situations is a pretty strong indication that humanity, even the most expert humanity, has no difficulty in tying itself up into technological knots. The recent launch of the Microsoft mess called Vista that was no doubt years in development by people expert in the field bears witness to human tendencies to screw up. The proposals that are put forth on the superiority of a projected robotic takeover are amusing but require a leap of faith which has seemed to have pretty much overwhelmed you. Faith is believing without seeing. I don't do that. But my past experience with religious people who blandly accept the most silly things without question has made me aware that people with faith have lost the ability to think clearly. I do not doubt that you have better grounds for your faith than religious people but those grounds are simply insufficient for me.