Evolution, Economics and the Shape of the Singularity

1. Evolution, Economics andthe Shape of the Singularity Mark R. Waser

2. Predicting the Future • Extrapolate from the present (linear/exponential) • Work backwards from constraints • Have a complete and rigorous model Bifurcations (phase shifts and true “black swans”) can ruinously interfere with any method of prediction BUT . . .

3. While we can’t predict specific features of the future . . . We *can* tell a lot about how likely various Singularity scenarios are . . . particularly those expected in the near term or believed already occurred

4. Predictions • Infinite Intelligence • Living In Virtual Reality • Medical Nanotech • Multiple Bodies • Replicators • Super-Intelligent Humans • Super-Intelligent Machines • Telepathy • Unlimited Energy • Uploading • World Peace • Anti-gravity • Body Morphing • Computers “Waking Up” • Cold Fusion • Cloning • Cryonics • Cyborgs • Living “Forever” • Faster Than Light Travel • Flying Cars • Grey Goo

5. Reaction Time 2 x 108 m/s 2 x 108 m/s

6. Other Common Mistakes • Phase Changes • Entropy • “Bumblebees can’t fly” • Quantum Mechanics • Braided Rings • Utility is not linear

7. Evolution • Punctuated equilibrium • Intermediate stages (jawbone flexible skull inner ear) • Convergent evolution (the eye) • Genetic/Evolutionary algorithms • Seed AI (link, link) • Program Evolution for General Intelligence/ MOSES (link)

8. Economy • 80% of the brain is unused • Prediction markets • Dollars *heavily* influence the direction of research AND legislation • Attention Economics (link) • Economic Attention Networks (link) • Evolution of Cooperative Problem-Solving in an Artificial Economy/Hayek Machine (link)

9. Dunning-Kruger Effect Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge -- Charles Darwin One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision -- Bertrand Russell Kruger, Justin; David Dunning (1999). "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (6): 1121–34. (link) ("the anosognosia of everyday life")

10. Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them --Laurence J. Peter • Complex (3-body problem) • Complicated • Chaotic

11. Singularitarians • I. J. Good (link) • Vernor Vinge (link, link) • Eliezer Yudkowsky (link, link) • Ray Kurzweil (link, link) • Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (link) • Singularity University (link) • H+ Magazine (link)

12. Other Names • Eric Drexler – nanotechnology (link) • Bill Joy - Why the future doesn’t need us (link) • Aubrey de Grey – anti-aging (link) • Ben Goertzel – WebMind/Novamente/OpenCog, H+ (link) • Hugo DeGaris – The Artilect War (link) • Eric Baum – What Is Thought?/Hayek (link)

13. Singularitarianism “Rapture of the Nerds” Ray Kurzweil is a genius. One of the greatest hucksters of the age. That's the only way I can explain how his nonsense gets so much press and has such a following. Now he has the cover of Time magazine, and an article called 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal. It certainly couldn't be taken seriously anywhere else; once again, Kurzweil wiggles his fingers and mumbles a few catchphrases and upchucks a remarkable prediction, that in 35 years (a number dredged out of his compendium of biased estimates), Man (one, a few, many? How? He doesn't know) will finally achieve immortality (seems to me you'd need to wait a few years beyond that goal to know if it was true). Now we've even got a name for the Kurzweil delusion: Singularitarianism. -- PZ Myers, Pharyngula (link)

14. “Friendly AI” Some fraction of the AI research community (or should I say, "AI enthusiast community", since this attitude is now rare among professional AI researchers) refuses to accept these ideas.  They insist on trying to design logic-based infallible godlike AIs in spite of this being impossible.  Some speculate about what might be possible "in principle", given a universe-sized chunk of computronium and the lifetime of the universe for its computations. They don’t like the abduction-based alternative simply because "It would be just as fallible as a human intelligence". To these "Shock Level Four" fanboys I say “get a clue”. -- Monica Anderson, H+ Magazine (link)

15. Functional AI We need working AI as soon as possible. An AI with the intelligence of the average 14-year old human would be worth a trillion dollars since it would revolutionize everything we use computers for today and would accelerate our advance as a species more than any previous technology. It is our responsibility as transhumanists to take this opportunity and turn this misdirected reductionist, logical reasoning-based AI research around to something that will be useful in our lifetimes. -- Monica Anderson, H+ Magazine (link)

16. Superhuman Intelligence • Intelligence of “human” or “humanity”? • Must it be in one entity/“self”? • Will the Singularity be incomprehensible? (link) • What is the goal of all that intelligence? • Dunbar’s number (link) / Gossip, Grooming and the Evolution of Language (link) • Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory (link) • Towards A Model of Mind as a Laissez-Faire Economy of Idiots (link)

17. Social Complexity & Collective Intelligence • Facebook, Google, and Wikipedia • Wicked Problems & Issue Mapping • Enhanced Wikipedia & Semantic Web • Prediction Markets • Open Source Democracy • Open Source Morality

18. Predictions • Grey Goo • Infinite Intelligence • Super-Intelligent Machines • Medical Nanotech • Multiple Bodies • Replicators • Telepathy • Unlimited Energy • Uploading • World Peace • Anti-gravity • Body Morphing • Computers “Waking Up” • Cold Fusion • Cloning • Cryonics • Cyborgs • Living “Forever” • Faster Than Light Travel • Flying Cars