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This week: Bad Ideas Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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The most watched programme on the BBC, after the news, is probably 'Doctor Who.' What has happened is that science fiction has been subsumed into modern literature. There are grandparents out there who speak Klingon, who are quite capable of holding down a job. No one would think twice now about a parallel universe.
-Terry Pratchett
My point has always been that, ever since the Industrial Revolution, science fiction has been the most important genre there is.
-Iain Banks
When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction.
-Steven Wright
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In my last newsletter, I noted that someone I know is actively trying to bring on the Singularity and said "Clearly, he's never read any science fiction."
Well, it's not just potential AI creators that need to learn from the all-wise, all-powerful writers of speculative fiction (I'm looking at YOU, Mr. Tony Stark). There have been several examples in recent memory of scientists who could have benefited from the warnings inherent in SF.
For instance, last year a bunch of scientists announced they'd dug up a 30,000 year old virus from the frozen wastes of Siberia.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a8/77/d8/a877d8881cbfee402c202c104022a...
Yes, I know the article says the virus is harmless to humans, but how do they know that? They know that because they unearthed a 30,000 year old virus to begin with.
Now, see, if they'd read science fiction, they'd have been a lot more careful with that.
In a somewhat related story, some other scientists think they may be able to recreate the wooly mammoth.
http://www.popsci.com/woolly-mammoth-dna-brought-life-elephant-cells
Now, look. I'm not saying that the reason human population began to increase is because we wiped out such things as the mammoth and the saber-teethed tooger, but those things happened about the same time, okay? And we've all seen Jurassic Park. Don't think for a second that a wooly mammoth is any safer than a pack of velociraptors.
But what's even worse is when someone has never seen horror movies. "Let's build this development on an ancient Indian grave site." "Hey, let's go check out that remote cabin in the woods." And worst of all, "Let's resurrect 125-year-old recordings."
How's that?
Here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/science/thomas-edison-talking-dolls-recordings...
Look at those dolls. LOOK at THEM. Look at them and tell me they're not straight from the inner pits of the lowest level of Hell. I mean, I knew Edison was evil - he was kind of the Ultron to Tesla's Tony Stark - but this?
What kind of genre-blindness does it take to actually want to know what those dolls had to say?
Just in case you didn't play the audio files from the above link, here it is - the oldest "entertainment" recording known to science (don't play it if you have any candles burning nearby):
http://podcasts.nytimes.com/podcasts/2015/05/05/science/05recording-sleep/lay.mp...
Sleep well. |
How 'bout some good ideas instead?
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Last time, in "The Singularity" , I talked about the idea of the Singularity, with human and machine consciousness achieving some sort of mutual transcendence.
Adrianna  : It always interests me why in sci-fi they assume that AI would seek to destroy the human race. If AI were achieved there is no reason to believe that it would adopt the human state of becoming manically violent and destructive, that is our human condition and presumably a higher-state-consciousness being would be above all that nonsense. At the very least I think AI would view humans with the same regard as we view ants - we don't cry if we step on them but nor do we generally go out of our way to destroy them, they are simply there, existing in the same world as us.
Of course if the ants were to one day become organised enough to pose a threat and rise against us then we would obliterate the ant population, and rightly so.
In conclusion, if we manage to achieve singularity then we needn't be afraid, unless of course we're dumb enough to attack it, in which case the world would probably be well rid of us stupid creatures.
Or perhaps the AI would view us not as ants, but as tigers - something to be nearly exterminated, with only a few specimens kept in zoos.
jerics: Hello I would just like to give my feed back on the topic concerning " Singularity ".
I say anything is possible. When we sleep do most of us dream? Is there more than one spoken, written and understood language here on this planet called earth? Is there an object we use to look at microscopic bugs and etc? Is there such thing as a remote that is capable of locking our cars and now houses as well?
Answer is Yes to all of the above. If we stop dreaming.....
OH WAIT!!! You had mentioned about thoughts, consciousness and computers.
WOW!!! what I was going to put was If we stop dreaming we as humans will cease to exists.
PINK FLOYD Is right Welcome to Machines
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Joto-Kai  : Read a story like that about Transporters. In fact their transporters were really interplanetary replicators, the original person had to be killed. Everything went fine if that happened, nobody minded because the 'new' person felt like they'd been transported. But humans sometimes broke the rules....
You could link the brain to the new consciousness. Eventually the body would deteriorate and be considered for amputation. The recipient supercomputer would consider your consciousness/personality to be a data download, or a peripheral and be Okay with that. The others would consider your recipient to be a fellow, just as you have no problem with the idea that there are cats or other humans. It should/could work.
However given the fan future (quantum time) there are many futures where we fail horribly. I lump those into the time-streams where we never existed and don't feel the need to worry about them!
How boring it would be if we never broke the rules...
David the Dark one!  : As for me... I'm always laughed at about my thought that something similar to terminator is possible, and I do feel it is. but I do believe deeply that if such a machine were to be crated, and were allowed to become self-aware, the danger to our, meaning as humans, very existence would be in jeopardy, as we are, as I'm sure most will agree, an extremely illogical, and sometimes egotistical race. as any machine that thinks like a machine, or a computer in this case, might consider us to be the virus that needs to be eradicated which would lead to us fighting back... and in the end.... we would all loose.
So, seen Avengers: Age of Ultron yet? 
Quick-Quill  : I'm in total agreement with you. BUT reading books and watching movies about people attempting to do this is so much fun. The imagination is unlimited. There is no need to be realistic except in the world/setting of the story. I love writing about "humans" who have powers. Not all have the same (I wrote my story before Heros came to be, but they are similar) powers. I love the conflict I can bring in testing those with more ablitites that what is real. What if? they could do this. but not that? Never limit your imagination in creating an AI. Make sure it operates in a realistic world, or who cares?
Of course, imagination is a wonderful thing. It can help us see what can be, and what shouldn't be.
Elfin Dragon-finally published : The Singularity has been looked at with many a Sci/Fi film, books and I'm sure theater. Take "I, Robot" - the presumption that robots in society will eventually gain their own consciousness. A half-dozen Star Trek episodes dedicated to the idea of machines over man would be better or machines being able to manipulate our conscious or subconscious thoughts. And you're right, the idea of another me (even for a few seconds of life) roaming around is a bit unsettling. But I'm all for striving for technological marvels like Star Trek's matter transporters. Heck, no one ever thought that their small communicators would ever become reality. And yet we now have cell phones which can call someone on the other side of the world, nay even to the space station.  If old Sci/Fi TV series & films have taught us anything is that the future is definitely not set in stone and scientists will forever be discovering new things.
Not to mention the awesome fact that we HAVE a space station...
mclark797: The problem with the idea as a singularity in tech is simply that we map it to a machine, eventually its just another sort of more durable body, but the machine body itself is subject to entropy and so will age and die as well. The problem relies on the idea that we can “Upload” ourselves to it, which means you’re still fragile. And this to me is not a very satisfying evolution.
The technology singularity is most likely BS. Much like saying you can always divide the distance in half in a fall, no matter how small. Quaint mathematical notion, but BS, you hit the ground. Consciousness is more likely a product of quantum field theory, where you are stored on the timeless quantum fabric, your "brain" is simply a receiver/collector.
There is nothing specific to suggest that the brain activity is causative, like a cell phone picking up a signal. Likewise it does not generate you, it accesses you and here you are. Case in point when you die, people often observably become lucid at the end and have clear cognition. If “you” were “your brain”, this should be impossible, as it is shutting down to die.
In that case you’re timeless and infinite, but the body is just one of many types of instruments you use to express yourself into the classic universe from the quantum space, possibly in more than one place at a time. There are people who seem to know things that they simply should not, Mozart playing piano at 2. Perhaps you’re accessing this data, and that is an accident that you can tune in to a second or third frequency, a brain with multiple channels.
Possibly even a machine could access that space that IS you (or collections of data that are this instance of you) and there you are two places at once.
When we talk about this, it’s usually in the context of a super-intelligence, which supposes that we are not a super-intelligence. Yet there is evidence to suggest as above that in fact we are.
Maybe the singularity exists, in spite of our being ignorant of it. We (in the quantum sense) are in fact super-intelligences that do not require a body as such, and can create a non-organic means of expression, that we power. But this "notion" of "it is coming" is simply the understanding that that is how we really work. By coming to an acceptance of that, instead of relying on mystical/supernatural explanation, we will learn to control that and open the gate to using the power.
Very thoughtful way of looking at it. Thanks for the feedback!
And that's it for me for now - see you next time, unless we manage to destroy civilization first. Until then,
DREAM ON!!!
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Fantasy: May 06, 2015 Issue [#6972]
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