Remember I told you that if an AI technology would be created that would involve consciousness, that would be not the AI we know but something totally different? Well ... — Alkis Piskas

Something like that, yes. I would call it an AGI or ASI, if such was created and became conscious.

AI Could Be Made Obsolete by 'Biocomputers' Running on Human Brain Cells
https://www.cnet.com/science/ai-could-be-made-obsolete-by-oi-biocomputers-running-on-human-brain-cells/
This article refers to what I posted in my previous message.
So, maybe you should think of changing direction ... :smile: — Alkis Piskas

It would not be much of a shift in direction. It's all part of the race between 'orga' and 'mecha' for the next stage in transhumanism. From your link, we have:

Concepts like biological computers and organoid intelligence could lead to a library's worth of new ethical discussions. Conversations about organoids becoming sentient, conscious or self-aware and the ensuing implications have been underway for years now, even though the technology is thought to be immature at the moment.
Organoid intelligence could 'augment' the current abilities of the human mind and body.
Advances in 'artificial' 'mecha' technologies could do the same.
Both systems seem capable of developing independent self-awareness and ALSO an ability to merge and become ONE with current humans on a person by person basis.

Organoid intelligence and biocomputers won't pose a threat to AI or human brains grown the old-fashioned way anytime soon. But Hartung believes it's time to begin increasing production of brain organoids and training them with AI in order to breakthrough some of the shortcomings of our existing silicon systems.
Orga and Mecha advances may become combative in the distant future, one may 'defeat' or stop the progress of the other, humans may be 'piggy in the middle' between them. Orga and Mecha systems may combine and both help to enhance humans and vastly increase the options we have, our longevity, our robustness etc. It all sounds pretty exciting to me, much more so than any imaginings from the theistic or theosophist camps.

Just a tiny notice. The terms "order/disorder" are observer depended. ITs not an intrinsic feature that a system can be "based on". The different phases of entropy might appear to us as a state of disorder but in reality we are not fully aware of a system's all hidden variables.
Now I am not sure that "singularity" is valid idea because according to quantum mechanics singularities are impossible. Changes in state across larger areas of the cosmos is closer to what we identify as "singularity". — Nickolasgaspar

Well, hello again Mr Gaspar! I hope any exchange between us, can be more fruitful than it has been in the past. I agree that order/disorder can be observer dependent based on relativity.
But the cosmological principle states: From Wiki:
In modern physical cosmology, the cosmological principle is the notion that the spatial distribution of matter in the universe is homogeneous and isotropic when viewed on a large enough scale, since the forces are expected to act uniformly throughout the universe, and should, therefore, produce no observable irregularities in the large-scale structuring over the course of evolution of the matter field that was initially laid down by the Big Bang.

The part I have underlined, confirms for me, that after the big bang, we moved from a situation of disorder, everywhere in the universe, and due to the homogeneous nature of the universe at that scale, that disorder, 'evolved' into the 'relative' 'order' of the galaxy clusters we observe today.

I agree that the term 'singularity' is ill-formed as a concept in all it's variations. I tend to simply use the term as a 'placeholder,' for that part of the story that remains currently 'fogged' to us.

The stuff with proteins looks quite interesting and promising. — Alkis Piskas

AlphaFold is considered a major breakthrough for protein folding, from DeepMind AlphaFold, we have:
This can produce a better understanding of proteins and enable scientists to change their function for the good of our bodies — for example in treating diseases caused by misfolded proteins, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and cystic fibrosis.

Scientists target ‘biocomputing’ breakthrough with use of human brain cells — Alkis Piskas

Biological computers may prove even more interesting than quantum computers, but they really are in their infancy. They have to identify a biological unit that has a 'natural' mechanism to reliably emulate 'at least 'two states.' These states would represent 1 and 0, in the same way as 'no voltage' and 'a voltage >0 and <= 5' represents 0 and 1 respectively in electronic computers, today. Proteins were the best candidate as far as I know. It's interesting that some kind of 'human brain cell,' might prove to be the better candidate. The ability of prions (I think) to cause cell replication would potentially mean a biological computer that can 'grow' as much memory capacity as it needs to. One biological computer could potentially hold all human information currently memorialised on Earth. It could easily store the contents of a human brain. But, at the moment it's mostly conjecture and speculation, but it is based on sound science. I could not make use of the link you offered as it required a subscription to progress to it's content.

TINY von Neumann-like Bracewell probes powered by antimatter or a micro-singularity – seems to me the way to go — 180 Proof

I agree that any initial attempt to get to alpha centauri will not involve any 'orga.'
But I don't think that will still be the case, on a timescale of thousands or tens of thousands of years from now. The best candidate idea for now seems to be starshot.

Unless, of course, we're talking about interstellar missions (such as asteroid O'Neill cylinder terreria generation ships), again traveling at even lower sub-relativistic velocities, arriving at their destination star systems after many millennia ... like the Star Trek TOS episode "For The World Is Hollow And I Touched The Sky", e8s3. — 180 Proof

I do think some kind of generational ships will be used to establish interstellar communities eventually, unless we find some kind of shortcut tech, currently proposed in sci-fi, warp tech or subspace/hyperspace gate style tech, wormhole tech, etc. I don't assign much credence to any of those proposals, but I would of course love to think one of them might prove to be possible in the future.

Another great star trek original series episode:

I thought however, that the base story, that the people did not know they were on a generational spaceship and the controlling mecha system kept that information from them, and posed as their god, was an unlikely scenario that an AGI/ASI, would conclude was the best way to 'maintain' the mindset of the people involved.

I 'liked' your last 2 posts, they contained a lot of 'reasonable' points.
I also credit @180 Proof's summary of your 'complaints' as 'stop picking on my Enformer of the gaps.'

To me, you painted your metaphysical floor in theistic shades and found yourself in a corner of the room waiting for the floor to dry, lest you should you should mess up your work. The problem is that the paint you used takes a loooooooooong time to dry and is prone to 'flaking' soon after it does.
If you added some rationality to the mix and stated categorically, that you fully accept, that any posit that suggests that our universe was created by a first cause MIND with INTENT is unfalsifiable and therefore has no validity as a hypothesis, and is certainly not worthy of the term 'theory,' then that might help. There IS NO theory of enformationism, it is nothing but YOUR philosophical musings (which you admit to at times and then at other times you call enformationism a 'theory.') and at its FOUNDATION, is a gap god character, you labelled the Enformer.
YOU are a good thinker with laudable debating skills, but in this case, your dalliance with theology has caused you to try to defend a hopeless position. You are in the same place as any theist, who simply says there is a first cause mind with intent that created the universe because I SAY THERE IS and then they (you thankfully don't!) pull out some ancient book of BS and claim this contains the ONLY truth's about the human race and it's origins and all other such ancient books of BS, are full of BS. :roll:
My advice in all earnest @Gnomon, is take out the BS woo woo from your Enformationism, if you want it to gain some credence ground within the scientific community. Otherwise, it may only ever find followers amongst nefarious characters like Ken Hovind, shown below from a year or so ago, debating evolution with a scientist. I think if he knew about your 'enformationism' he would try to promote it as 'scientific' and valid evidence of god. He would do this as all those in his camp are desperate for any life raft of flotsam they can find.

I asked chatGBT to write me a song about 'what's emergent in humans.'
Here's what I got:



Verse 1:
We are more than just the sum of our parts
Our minds and bodies, intertwined works of art
There's something deeper, something that we can't explain
A quality within us, that we can't contain

Chorus:
It's the emergent, the magic in our souls
The mystery that makes us whole
It's the way we laugh, the way we cry
The beauty that we can't deny

Verse 2:
It's the love we share, the bonds we form
The way we weather the wildest storms
It's the courage to stand up and fight
And the power to make things right

Chorus:
It's the emergent, the magic in our souls
The mystery that makes us whole
It's the way we laugh, the way we cry
The beauty that we can't deny

Bridge:
It's in the way we create, and innovate
And the way we communicate
Our ability to dream, and to inspire
To light the world with a single fire

Chorus:
It's the emergent, the magic in our souls
The mystery that makes us whole
It's the way we laugh, the way we cry
The beauty that we can't deny

Outro:
We are more than just flesh and bone
There's something greater, something unknown
It's the emergent, the beauty in our veins
A quality that forever remains.

:lol: I think chatGBT might have theistic tendencies. :rofl:

Wow, is that so? Well, I know that OpenAI faces a huge overloading problem. — Alkis Piskas

Hah! I just checked again to see if I could set up an account and I was successful! :grin:
They SAID they would send me an email when space was available!! :rage:
Still, I now have an OpenAI account :party: :party:
I will go chat to chatGBT forthwith! Thanks for inspiring me to check the OpenAI status Alkis!

I get the image.
In your turn, get the following image: Before modems came to wide use, in the office I was working we didn't have any, so I created a program in assembly for transfering data from one PC to another, by connecting their serial ports with a cable! I didn't even know what LAN was. — Alkis Piskas

Interesting, what cable did you use for the transfer? If it was a simple twisted wire pair telephone cable then you would have needed to modulate a digital input into an analogue one, to then send it along the cable. The signal would then need demodulation at the receiving port, so you must have converted between digital and analogue at some point, or am I missing something?
Did you send the file as a payload stream with start and stop bits and a parity bit?

Then, you have lost already! :grin: — Alkis Piskas

Nah, you forget, @Jamal would hold the dosh!

Anyway, in short: I have to do nothing. The burden of proof lies to the person who claims that something is true or exists or occurs or has happened. This is you! :smile: Come to me with valuable finding and I will acjnowldge it to you even if it isn't the final solution, but is relatively close to to the goal of creating an aware AI. — Alkis Piskas

Sounds fair to me!

Then we will have to move to the next step: a self-aware AI, which is an attribute of humans only. — Alkis Piskas

No, I will not offer a candidate AGI/ASI system that I am not convinced is self-aware.

Which reminds of what I read once, that chess supercomputers --like once was IBM's Deep Blue; I don't know how that has been evolved-- can lose when the oponent makes a move that has no sense or something like that. — Alkis Piskas

Two extracts about Demis Hassabis you might find interesting, based on your quote above and if you were not already aware of Demis' back story. These are from: The future perfect
Growing up in north London, the child of a Greek Cypriot father and a Chinese Singaporean mother, Hassabis was a child prodigy in chess from the age of 4. He began writing his own computer games at 8, created one of the first video games to use AI at 17, and founded his own video game company not long after graduating from Cambridge University at 20.

Games are a logical playground for both AI models and for the men and women who design them. Games have clear rules and clear metrics for success and failure. When IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, it was considered a major landmark in the advancement of AI. But whereas Deep Blue triumphed primarily thanks to sheer computational force, which enabled it to examine 200 million moves per second, the models Hassabis helped shepherd at DeepMind seemed capable of truly learning, at least within the bounds of the games.

Demis chose the name DeepMind in consideration of the achievement of Deep Blue.

Have you tried OpenAI's ChatGPT? (I think I have brought that up some time ago in this thread but it didn't get any attention ...) — Alkis Piskas

I am on the list to be connected, the list is full at present.

Again, my expertise as an analyst was limited to PCs, i.e. mainly MS DOS and later Windows and it was restricted to LANs and small groups and a few clients. For a year I also worked with WANs. — Alkis Piskas

Sounds good. I always enjoyed teaching the network topologies of LAN's and WAN's. We used to use some old BBC Micro's and we built a small client/server system in a star, bus, ring or even a fully connected mesh LAN topology or sometimes, a hybrid. With our 6th year students we even engaged some of our feeder primary schools to set up a small WAN, using a couple of old routers and a stripped down stand alone and networked Op system. It was good to be restricted to a textual user interface, no GUI involved.
The pupils got to learn some BBC BASIC and DOS and MS DOS commands.

I know this. I do it when I mention someone other than the person I am replying/commenting to and I believe that my message will be of interest to them. — Alkis Piskas

Ok, I should have figured that!

However, by "judge" I meant who will judge who won the bet? — Alkis Piskas

You can be the judge! I trust you (well, for £50 anyway). If you are not satisfied that the candidate system is self-aware and I am dead, then the cash is yours, otherwise, TPF gets it. OR of course I win! :party: :party: :party:

Of what use will ASI be? It has nothing that will ever qualify it for good human judgment. No human experience and no feelings. To have feelings, there must be a body that can feel. Chimpanzees would not exist if they did not care for each other. They are social animals and regulated by hormones that give the body feelings that determine behaviors. Social animals can teach us more about being humans, than ASI will ever know. ASI can have information but without experience, information is not knowledge. — Athena

If I could offer you a replacement pinky for the one you have, with the following properties:
1. Aesthetically identical to the pinky you have.
2. Functions exactly the same way as your current pinky, same sensitivity levels, etc
3. Can hold a 100 stone weight for up to 8 hours before you would have to let go of the weight.
4. Can allow you to hang by your pinky for as long as you like.

Basically a much more robust pinky? You could kill someone with that pinky!
Would you accept the free pinky upgrade and become one of the advanced pinky people, or would you stay as one of the current mundane pinky humans?

I doubt it. Sending self-replicating AGI (an)droids imwould be far more energy and resources efficient. — 180 Proof

I'm not so sure, perhaps 'orga' components will be as vital to the successful development of interstellar space, as any pure 'mecha.' I tried to employ some wordsmithery, as cool as yours, with 'orga' and 'mecha,' even though I didn't coin the terms. :halo:

:up: Looks like it's been fixed :clap:

ucarr is now at 562 posts, indicating that your imagination cooked up the whole thing. — Jamal

:rofl: I imagine you will sleep like an innocent child tonight, it's ok, you don't have to thank me. :blush:

Some monolith picked the above picture, honest!

Programming was my first profession (1986~1997) and back then I was mainly a system programmer but also an analyst. — Alkis Piskas

Interesting, What op systems did you work on?
I did some sub-routine work on syntax analysers and contextual analysers etc, using Pascal (HLL) into a Pcode assembly language, targeted at the old Motorolla series 68000 processors (using 16 bit CISC).
This was just practice at creating high level language translators to produce an assembly code, which could then be translated into machine code for the Motorolla 16 bit (or in fact the 32 bit) early processors. During 1986-1997 they were still trying to establish a robust software development cycle based on 'the waterfall' model or ADITDEM. As an Analyst at that time, did you find yourself more and more pressured to comply or develop more rigorous 'technical support' systems for client groups?

Yes. If after a week it’s still keeping me awake at night, I’ll look into it. — Jamal

Aw diddum's! do our issue's keep you awake at night?

Just based on my recent exchange with Alkis and our posts at:

AI can never become self-aware or even just aware. Awareness is an attribute of life (living organisms). — Alkis Piskas

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13868/emergent/p26#:~:text=the%20human%20brain.-,AI%20can%20never%20become%20self%2Daware%20or%20even%20just%20aware.%20Awareness,%3Agrin%3A,-Science%20knows%20very

Did you read my note to ucarr about his 'number of posts' variable seemingly stuck on 561?

This is what I call great aspirations! ... Or should I say, Great Expectations? — Alkis Piskas

Absafragginlootly!

Why am I not afraid of that? I have dozens of other things in my mind that might lead us to extinction, but not that. Well, who knows were you and I would be --if we are still alive-- when such a thing would actually happen? — Alkis Piskas

Perhaps yer just a tough dude Alkis, No fears my dears!

Glad to hear that, universeness! — Alkis Piskas

:up: By the way, when you type @universness, don't use the @ on your keyboard. Choose it from the tool list at the top of your blank response box. I then get informed that I have been mentioned in a post so that I go and read it. It works similarly to the 'quote' tab you can choose after highlighting someone's text you wish to quote and respond to. Sorry, if you already know all about this.

Sure. But who will be the judge? — Alkis Piskas

I will send £50 to @Jamal, you do the same. As soon as an AGI/ASI gets created and convinces YOU that it is self-aware and conscious then @Jamal will transfer the £100 to me.
If I die before that happens then he can transfer the £100 to you. If You die before me or we both die before @Jamal, then he can donate the £100 to the maintenance costs of TPF.
In truth, I think @jamal could just use the £100 for TPF whenever he needs to as I think neither of us is likely to win the bet. :lol:

I really liked this response by Victor Toth on Quora to the question:

To which degree can quantum mechanics be truly understood (Thinking about what Richard Feynman said about it)?
“True understanding” is in the eye of the beholder.

So let me tell you instead what it is that, in my considered opinion, cannot be done: You can never understand quantum physics if you try to conceptualize it using the classical concepts of a particle or a wave. Classical concepts do not apply. Intuition does not apply. Visualization does not apply.

The reason? Up until the point where quantum mechanics uses a mathematical apparatus to describe the “state” of a system, it remains consistent with classical physics and thus it could be intuited. But then comes a critical step: a quantum system can be in a “superposition” of classical states. That is to say, that electron can indeed be in two (or three, or seventy-seven, or an infinite number of) places at once. In this state, that elementary particle has no well-defined position or momentum. In fact, it only has classically well-defined properties when it interacts with a classical system (or something indistinguishable from a classical system) such as an instrument, a camera, a cat, a human. And therein lies the other conceptually difficult issue: how does a quantum system “know” that it must evolve towards such an “eigenstate”, anticipating a future interaction with a classical instrument? Or perhaps it doesn’t know and the transition is instantaneous and therefore retroactive?

Long story short, classical concepts do not apply here. So if “true understanding” means “explain in terms of classical analogies, appealing to intuition or visualization” the answer is that it cannot be done.

But if understanding means getting rid of classical concepts and analogies altogether, accept the math as a valid description of Nature (after all, the predictions match reality) and move on, recognizing the limitations of the human brain to “internalize” certain difficult, counterintuitive truths, then perhaps “true understanding” is possible.

As I said, what “true understanding” means is in the eye of the beholder.

This is the kind of issue that I think an AGI or ASI would be able to help us understand.

Ah! Ok, I get your meaning now.
Surely an ASI will send probes to places like Alpha Centauri and Barnards star. They are only a few light years away. Might even be able to send augmented humans, no? Do you not think so?

Just a small TPF tech point ucarr. Have you noticed that your 'number of posts' variable seems to be stuck on 561! I noticed that it had not moved past 561, due to your recent postings on this and other threads. Perhaps worth raising with @Jamal
:blush: Oh! I think I just did! :halo:

I think the 'posthuman future' will be intrastellar-intraplanetary — 180 Proof

:lol: You continue to demonstrate you wordsmith skills!
I googled 'intrastellar' and the only useful sentence I got was:
Is the word intrastellar commonly used to refer to objects within our solar system by astronomers, or is it just the editors creative reversal of interstellar.

I assume you are invoking the idea of 'inside stars' by 'intra.'
So, do you think a ASI will quickly create a Dyson sphere?

Oh, I was not meaning to invalidate your knowledge, universeness! I'm very sorry about that! Really. :sad:
I most probably pushed it to far. I do that sometimes. It has nothing to do with the other person. It has to do with myself, who has read and heard --and I still do-- so much crap about AI, that it makes me puke. And this, because I am a AI programmer and I always try do make people aware and know what AI is actually about. But the wall of ignorance is too thick for me to break and it becomes strongher and higher with time. So, maybe it's time for me to stop doing that. In fact, stop caring about that and let people live in their ignorance. Besides, this situation is so old as the dawn of Man.

I'm sorry again, @universeness. — Alkis Piskas

No problem Alkis. I enjoy the challenge of the differences in our viewpoints, as I have always found you an honest interlocuter and those are not so easy to find. You have no 'stealth agenda.' You are more like a WYSIWYG. What You See Is What You Get.
I would be interested in more details regarding what AI system you used to, or still do, program for.
From previous posts, I assumed your expertise is in linguistics and linguistic translation. Is it AI NLP systems you worked with (NLP as in Natural Language Process(ing)(ors))?

Proposed as what? — Alkis Piskas

Your own choice of link seems to define the term quite well:

(https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/artificial-superintelligence-ASI) — Alkis Piskas

From that site, we have:
What is artificial superintelligence (ASI)?
Artificial superintelligence (ASI) entails having a software-based system with intellectual powers beyond those of humans across a comprehensive range of categories and fields of endeavor.

I understand that the definition mentions 'intellect' only and not such as 'emotion,' 'instinct,' 'intuition,' etc. But if you watch the material coming out from current AI experts, such as Nick Bostrom, Demis Hassabis, et al. You should accept that what they are reporting, is not like listening to a preacher talking BS from a pulpit. What they are saying, has a credence level, backed by scientific projections, that we should all pay attention to. Here is yet another short example:

Nick discusses some of the issue's related to future AGI/ASI systems along with the issue of a self-aware, conscious AI.

A book contains data, not knowledge. Knowledge is created after you assimilate this data. (Check the term "knowledge".) And it is your mind that process this data, not your brain. The brain can only process stimuli. And stimuli are not data. — Alkis Piskas

Data has no meaning! '23' or 'Bob,' IS data. A book contains contextualised data, labelled data, data with associated meaning, such as "When Bob was 23 years of age, he picked up his first book on artificial intelligence." That sentence is NOT DATA, it is INFORMATION (data with meaning), which when read and processed by such as a human brain, it adds to the readers KNOWLEDGE of Bob when he was 23 years of age. I am not an advocate of your dualist viewpoint. I make no significant distinction between the human mind and the human brain.

AI can never become self-aware or even just aware. Awareness is an attribute of life (living organisms). — Alkis Piskas

Wanna bet?? :grin:

Science knows very little at the moment
— universeness
Science knows a lot about AI already. But if you mean if Science can find how can AI become "aware", well, I don't know of any scientific projects at this moment trying to achieve AI awareness, although there might be some without my knowledge. — Alkis Piskas

My quote above was referring to what science knows about the exact 'tipping point' and the exact ingredients/recipe/mechanisms, which caused natural self-awareness or consciousness to happen, in the sense of a moment or event or process/series of random events within a given duration within 'spacetime.' We are fairly convinced that abiogenesis occurred FIRST and then self-awareness/consciousness, after, but science has many gaps in it's current knowledge about those events.

Developing AGI and ASI may fill in many of those gaps and by doing so, silence any theistic and theosophistic residuals, that are still holding back, human growth and progress.
I find it fascinating that ASI might mean our extinction, or the kind of 'post-human' eon that @180 Proof, raises an eyebrow of credence towards or the next welcome stage of human progress, that we need, to become a significant extraterrestial and interstellar species, that I believe it WILL allow us to become. ASI will give us the longevity and robustness we need to have so many more options in life, than we have now.

Otherwise, I really admire and respect what you do, all the scientific research you are doing on the subject, something which I know you do for many other subjects. I wish I had the necessary patience myself to do the same! :smile: — Alkis Piskas

Thanks Aliks, I enjoy exchanging views with you also.

You can hear from many people that AI has consciousness and undestands and all that stuff. Well, before believing them and/or taking that kind of information for granted, you must study and acquire a solid knowledge about AI. Then, you must have experience in applying and programming AI, and for this you must be an eperienced programmer. Only then you can judge for yourself and be certain about the validity of their statements. But of, course, you don't need to do all that! :smile: You can only know well the basics and apply simple logic. — Alkis Piskas

I am a retired Computer Scientist who taught the subject for 30+ years Alkis.
I am not exactly an AI neophyte.

The term "Artificial Superintelligence (ASI)" is exaggerated. There's no actually such a thing as "artificial superintelligence". There's only Artificial Intelligence (AI), which can range from very simple computations to very complex and sophisticated solutions to problems and, with an analogous complexity and capacity in handling of data. — Alkis Piskas

No, ASI is proposed, based on the current advances in AI and by an observed pace of advancement, indicated by such as Moore's law.

However, knowledge involves undestanding. It's not something mechanical or computational or an ability to store and retrieve data. It also ofetn involves perception. — Alkis Piskas

A book contains knowledge but has no understanding until your brain processes it.
An AGI or ASI is a moment of pivotal change or 'singularity,' if and only if it becomes self-aware.

AI has no undestanding. It cannot undestand. It cannot perceive. It has no consiousness. It cannot even think. It just follows and process instructions, which may indeed involve going through quite sophisticated and complex routines (algorithms) in order to find solutions to problems. — Alkis Piskas

This is correct for all current AI systems imo but not for future AI.
Science knows very little at the moment, about the 'instant' or 'recipe' that happened/caused at some point, after abiogenesis, an awareness of self. Programmed AI will eventually become self-programming. We already have AGV's (automatically guided vehicles), such as extraterrestial rovers, that can employ decision methodologies, which can 'learn.' In other words, they don't just pattern match to previously stored scenario's from a very large, stored, knowledge base under a 'query based' expert system. It can use a massive array of sensors to gather information about a live event it is experiencing, and use queries it forms through it's programmed expert system, which can pattern match with its knowledge base. This is not so dissimilar, to what you do when you face an unfamiliar situation, and you query your brain/instincts/emotions. for 'what to do next,'
A future AGI will be way more advanced than the current extraterrestial rovers/AGV's we currently have.
If this 'learning' ability continues, then I think the AI system will be able to program itself, by recording every experience it has, and by linking that to in-built previous programming. If this ability grows, then I think it will become self-aware, in the same way natural evolution caused many lifeforms, to become self-aware, at some point, after abiogenesis occurred, via very large variety combining in every way it possibly could, based on happenstance. I think self-awareness will happen for artificial intelligence, based on the fact it happened for natural intelligence.
An expert medical system which contains the knowledge of many human doctors, can be replicated in seconds. Training a new human doctor take's many many years. Expert systems are being employed more and more. There are issues, but they are being overcome, at a faster and faster pace.

From Emerald Insight (a site that sells journals, books and case studies,) we have:
Today′s doctors require decision support aids to help them cope with the management of increasing amounts of medical information (records, research advances, new drugs), make appropriate choices and even to substitute in an expert′s absence. Such aids exist in the form of medical expert systems, which are complex computer programs that emulate clinical reasoning. Expert systems consist of a knowledge base in which doctors expertise is encoded and an “inference engine” which manipulates that knowledge. A number of successful diagnostic, management and combined systems are in use but these are a small fraction of the total available. Preventing wider usage are difficulties in evaluation as well as in response time. Significant improvements in resource management can be obtained by the deployment of medical expert systems, so they are predicted to influence profoundly the future of health care in general practice and hospitals alike.

How does this make Anne Sullivan different from a future ASI that can teach humans sign language? — Athena

A future ASI maybe as comparable with the intellect of Anne Sullivan as you or I are comparable with the intellect of a chimpanzee.

To establish what makes human thinking different from AI. — Athena

You are attempting to compare human intellect with current AI. Current AI is advancing in functionality and capability. Systems like chatGPT are very advanced compared to an early system such as ELIZA.
ELIZA was considered a significant advance on historical AI.
How close are we to creating AGI?

Anne Sullivan was motivated to learn and teach for human reasons. AI does not have that motivation. There is no caring or feeling for AI. AI can destroy thousands of lives because it has no emotions that would stop it from doing what is programmed to do. It also would not create something new and needed to resolve a human problem for the same no motive reason. Your computer will not wake up one morning and attempt to teach you valuable lessons. It does not care about you or any human. It has no human experience or feelings for determining what is just and what is humane. — Athena

Humans who became more 'enlightened' tend to reject 'law of the jungle' behaviours.
AGI would have a learning capacity, which would grow much faster than the human ability to become enlightened. It's just as probable that an AGI/ASI would reach a level of enlightenment that would ensure it's benevolence towards all life and all flora and fauna. The destructive AI you contemplate would not imo, be a very advanced AI, and we could probably defeat it, quite easily.

Or we can ask, what is your reasoning considering the possibility that the other knows something we do not. — Athena

How much do you know about current developments in AI, what sources are you referencing?

You don’t think long commutes are a waste of resources? My last job was about 200 km away. I considered moving but the cost of living was so much higher there. So I went in once or twice a week and did a 40 hour shift and did the rest of the work from home. I burned 4 cars into the ground doing that. Every one of them was lost somewhere on the commute to that place — noAxioms

Yes, I do think long commutes are a waste of resources. I quite liked most of the imagery you invoked in:

I suspect the future for the personal vehicle (let alone a flying one) is doomed. Transportation in any sufficiently dense population is best done by mass transit. I’ve been in the places where many people don’t own cars since everything can be reached via bus, subway, intercity trains, boats, etc. Most of the personal transportation might be limited to bicycles. It’s too rural where I live to do that, but that raises the problem where many want to live in a scenic place like the mountains, but do work more suited to an urban setting. That makes for a lot of resources wasted on commuting, even if it is a mass commute.
There will be small vehicles, like a service van for the plumber and such. — noAxioms

But, I didn't like the suggestion that in your scenario, 'a lot of resources,' would be wasted, so I typed:

Sounds good to me! Apart from the 'waste of resources.' — universeness

I have no idea why you interpreted this as You don’t think long commutes are a waste of resources?

Yes, but one car passing another isn’t a significant change. It’s a subtle one, even if the long term implications are not subtle. Maybe the cars are not side by side but km apart and nobody notices the difference.
I didn’t see the point in bringing up a mathematical singularity at all. OK, a black hole event horizon is a singularity of sorts, and dropping through one won’t be noticed by the thing doing it, but the implications (certain doom) are there, and probably were already there before the EH was crossed. So there’s a bit of appropriateness to that analogy. — noAxioms

I don't follow your logic here. The development of an AGI/ASI, has been posited by many, as the technical singularity moment, that will ring the death knell for the whole human species. That's why I mentioned it in my OP on this thread, as I wanted to know how credible, posters here, considered that dystopian prediction to be.

How is population of a given region controlled? That can’t stay exponential forever, else the human biomass density will eventually exceed the mass density of the available elements. None of the above visions work without this. Shipping the excess off-planet is not a solution. Colonization is done with new blood. Australia is sort of an exception to this, but it was not done with surplus, but with undesirables. — noAxioms

Via population education, a better means of production, distribution and exchange, perhaps we can make the deserts bloom, build environmental friendly, cities under the water, and we also have the potentially unlimited living space, that might eventually result from space exploration and development.

If that was the outcome, there’d be no point to the war. No, the loser loses something, usually significantly more than just say their leader having to bend the knee. Why does Ukraine resist what’s happening if all they have to do is unite and everybody goes home happy? — noAxioms

Ukraine may well have united with Russia in the same way as countries in the European union united.
Putin is too autocratic to understand such possibilities. You can achieve much more with the carrots than with the sticks.
If we were in days gone past then Putin's daughter might have been married to Zolensky's son, and prevented the war. There rarely is any point to war. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

You seem to be OK with there being wealthy people. After all, it makes for an incentive to do something truly productive rather than mere pursuit of one’s hobbies.
I wonder if a sufficiently wealthy person could create a company, all without money. What if the company could be publicly owned? That would make for money appearing in a system devoid of it. My brother is well educated in such matters. I should discuss stuff like that with him. — noAxioms

As long as what you would consider 'wealthy,' gives such individuals no significant ability, to influence any significant number of individuals, to vote a particular way, or can influence the actions of those in authority, or can help them gain political office, then yes, I could accept it. Especially if everyone can take their basic needs and protections for granted from cradle to grave, and it is the only way to sate those who find such a pursuit, essential to their inner vision of what personal freedom is, and what they consider, the obvious result and goal of an powerful inner entrepreneurial drive.

How does the robot restaurant cook react to a rat in the fresh food storage? Probably doesn’t notice it. — noAxioms

You are merely trying to suggest a scenario which YOU think CURRENT automated systems could not deal with. I will leave such issues to the experts in the field. They are aware of such problems as cook's of the past have reported them. The reggae band UB40, even wrote a song about the issue:

Who knows how new tech will change how an abortion is performed in the future.
Sure, but ‘how’ is not the issue. ‘If’ is more the issue. — noAxioms

Yes but bodily autonomy may not be an issue in the future if the whole process is done outside of the body, as I am sure most women would prefer that, to the bodily trauma they currently have to go through. No abortion as such would be needed just a case of completing a process or stopping it. I imagine, a whole new set of arguments would ensue.
How about a future where a man can be injected with a compound which makes him produce the equivalent of a female egg. This could then be removed and fertilised with sperm, from his male partner.
:lol: I would love to see the theist's react to that one. I think future biotech is going to create many 'fun' possibilities (Ok, I was employing a little sarcasm just then!)

Those on the bottom of the social status scale don’t seem to mind their position there, or the social disdain that comes with it. — noAxioms

You know this for certain? How many have you personally asked?

Then there would be crime, which would be dealt with accordingly, especially with automated evidence-gathering infrastructure that makes it almost impossible to get away with anything illegal. It’s not big-brother if it’s just preventing crime, right? — noAxioms

Crime has always existed. I think there would be a lot less of it, in a fair socioeconomic world.
I have never suggested, it would be totally removed, by any sociopolitical system I support.

Just so. Then there’s no obligatory tasks, pretty much exactly like life in a zoo. — noAxioms

Do the animals in a zoo have free travel? freedom of speech and protest? a democratic vote? Free education? A career path of their choice with an ability to change their chosen life path anytime they wish?
If they do, then I would love to live in such a world zoo.

If only Gnomon & co could (i.e. would make the effort to) understand and appreciate the soundly speculative implications of contemporary sciences such as — 180 Proof

A great clip. I had not watched this one, and I liked the 4 strands mentioned and the proposed connectivity between them. Last night, I watched this almost 2.5 hour debate on the question 'Is Christianity rational,' between Matt Dillahunty and an eastern orthodox guy who uses the ID, 'Posh.'
Posh's arguments for why a first cause mind with intent was rational and logical, sounded very familiar. I think Gnomon would approve. Matt debunked his viewpoints very well. Worth watching if you can find the time.

Thanks. — 180 Proof

You are welcome! It's bizarre to me that @Gnomon actually thinks we are doing him a favour, by encouraging him to explain more about his motivations and personal reasons for inventing and blogging about his personal theocratic musings that he labels enformationism and the gap god he has titled 'the enformer.'

Thanks for allowing me to continue my exploration of the Enformationism conjecture. :smile: — Gnomon

I could understand, if many, many TPF members were enthusiastically, posting in support of his claims.
So, I think this further exposure, of his speculations, and his own admission of it's direct connection to theological stances such as deism and a Kalam style first cause mind with intent, has further damaged the rationality of his creationist worldview. In many, many cases, it's just not true that any publicity is good publicity.

Whoops. Sorry. My fault. — jgill

Nae problem bruv! Your icon is still very cool looking, and I still envy your title of maths 'prof.'

I will take the liberty of repeating them here, to help remind @Gnomon, that he should try to answer them and I confirm, that he does not need to provide substantive empirical evidence, to do so.
It's me who insists that empirical science is the final arbiter of all philosophical musing, not @180 Proof.

A. In science, what specifiable problem does "Enformationism" solve falsifiably?
B. In philosophy, what non-trivial, coherent question does "Enformationism" raise without begging any (or translate into a more probative question or questions)?
• How does your "Meta-physics" trump physics' conservation laws (e.g. Newton's 3rd law of motion)?
• How have you solved the causal interaction problem (re: substance dualism)?
• With respect to "Causal Agency", what non-trivially differentiates "Enformationism" from creationism / intelligent design?
1. Why do "ancient Holistic philosophies" need non-philosophical "support"?
2. What is such "support" suppose to change about or with "ancient Holistic philosophies"? And change for whom?
3. Lastly, insofar as scientifically literate philosophers / students of philosophy tend to dismiss your repetitious (mis)uses of scientific theories and their findings coupled with your own (disingenuous?) confession to being a neophyte in both philosophy and natural sciences, how do you know, Gnomon, that the pervasive "lukewarm reception ,"is due to "reductive scientistic bias" and not due to well-founded learning that is philosophically and/or scientifically superior to your own? What does overlooking or denying the more likely prospect of the latter possibility say about the "openness" – or lack thereof – of your "mind", sir?

You are way above me, my friend. I never got over an infatuation with BASIC, merely dabbling in Fortran, C++, etc. Look at my icon. This little guy materialized after a magnification of well over 1,000X from a program I wrote on certain dynamical systems. :cool: — jgill

I think you cut my quote, incompletely:

I do think I could claim an equivalent relationship with computers as you or jgill — universeness

instead of:

I do think I could claim an equivalent relationship with computers as you or jgill,enjoys with maths. — universeness

I was not comparing our knowledge of Computing Science, I was suggesting my love of Computing Science was probably comparable with your love or Pantagruel's love of mathematics.

Yes, the icon you produced, reminds me of the many images we produced at uni, when we used recursive algorithms to produce fractal patterns.

Thanks for allowing me to continue my exploration of the Enformationism conjecture. — Gnomon

You are welcome to your speculations.

Yeah, brain chemistry is easily impacted. At least you have not lost your 'love' of maths.
Absolute fluency in any language, is very hard to achieve, even for those like John Nash (of 'A beautiful mind fame.') My command of maths is 'average' at best. I envy your description of your relationship with maths. I would even be happy to take the same 'hit' as you did, to my maths fluency, if it meant I could claim the maths level you or @jgill has. I do think I could claim an equivalent relationship with computers as you or jgill, enjoys with maths. I know some people use the term math rather that maths, but then, as a Scottish person, I pure know how to spoke right England by ra way!!

The Universe is made of quantum fields — Pantagruel

Yeah, I've watched that lecture twice. It's great for reducing your model of the universal fundamentals from the baryons (protons, neutrons, electrons) etc to 'quarks' and electrons and improving your understanding of QFT.

I think mathematics is a REAL language.